Chapter published in:
Developments in English Historical Morpho-Syntax
Edited by Claudia Claridge and Birte Bös
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 346] 2019
► pp. 149–173

Counterfactuality and aktionsart

Predictors for BE vs. HAVE + past participle in Middle English

In Middle English (ME), manner of motion verbs occur in perfect periphrases with both BE and HAVE as auxiliaries (e.g. is/has run, is/has ridden), the BE-variant being the older, the HAVE-variant the more recent form with these verbs. Los (2015) hypothesizes that the choice of auxiliary with manner of motion verbs in ME might depend systematically on aktionsart in that HAVE is chosen when the verb denotes a controlled process (e.g. he has run fast for an hour), and BE when the verb denotes a change of location (e.g. he is run into town), much as in Present-Day Dutch. Also taking into account other factors that have been suggested to influence the choice of BE vs. HAVE in Middle English (such as counterfactuality, infinitive, or past perfect), I test this hypothesis on data from the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. I show that aktionsart is indeed a very reliable predictor, but overridden by counterfactuality.
Keywords: perfect, auxiliary selection, Middle English, counterfactuality, aktionsart, construal, manner of motion verb, mixed logistic regression
Published online: 27 May 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.346.08hub
References

References

de Acosta, Diego
(2013) The Old English Have-Perfect and its Congeners. Journal of English Linguistics 41(3), 33–64.Google Scholar
Anderwald, Lieselotte
(2014) The Decline of the BE-perfect, Linguistic Relativity, and Grammar Writing in the Nineteenth Century. In Marianne Hundt (Ed.), Late Modern English Syntax (13–37). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Maechler, Martin, Bolker, Ben, & Walker, Steve
(2015) Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67(1), 1–48.Google Scholar
Beliën, Maaike
(2012) Dutch Manner of Motion Verbs: Disentangling Auxiliary Choice, Telicity and Syntactic Function. Cognitive Linguistics 23(1), 1–26.Google Scholar
(2017) Auxiliary Choice with Particle Verbs of Motion in Dutch. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 49(2), 212–231.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J., & Arnovick, Leslie
(2017) The English Language: A Linguistic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Keith, & Miller, Jim
(2013) Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brunner, Karl
(1962) Die englische Sprache: Ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung / 2: Die Flexionsformen und ihre Verwendung. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
CME=Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse
Retrieved from http://​quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/c​/cme.
Denison, David
(1993) English Historical Syntax: Verbal Constructions. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Faiß, Klaus
(1989) Englische Sprachgeschichte. Tübingen: Francke.Google Scholar
Filip, Hana
(2011) Aspectual Class and Aktionsart. In Klaus von Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn, & Paul Portner (Eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning (= HSK 33.2) (1186–1217). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Fischer, Olga
(1992) Syntax. In Norman Blake (Ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language. Volume II. 1066–1476 (207–408). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fridén, Georg
(1948) The Tenses of the English Verb from Chaucer to Shakespeare. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Gillmann, Melitta
(2015) Auxiliary Selection in Closely Related Languages: The Case of German and Dutch. In Rolf Kailuweit, & Malte Rosemeyer (Eds.), Auxiliary Selection Revisited. Gradience and Gradualness (333–358). Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hogg, Richard
(2002) An Introduction to Old English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Huber, Judith
(2017) Motion and the English Verb: A Diachronic Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Johannsen, Berit
(2016) From Possessive-Resultative to Perfect? Re-Assessing the Meaning of [hæbb- + Past Participle] Constructions in Old English Prose. In Valentin Werner, Elena Seoane, & Cristina Suárez-Gómez (Eds.), Re-assessing the Present Perfect (23–42). Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony & Taylor, Ann
(1999)  The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English (PPCME2). Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Kytö, Merja
(1997)  Be/Have + Past Participle: The Choice of Auxiliary with Intransitives from Late Middle to Modern English. In Matti Rissanen, Merja Kytö, & Kirsi Heikkonen (Eds.), English in Transition: Corpus-Based Studies in Linguistic Variation and Genre Styles (17–86). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W.
1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Łęcki, Andrzej M.
(2010) Grammaticalisation Paths of 'Have' in English. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Los, Bettelou
(2015) A Historical Syntax of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Macleod, Morgan
(2014) Synchronic Variation in the Old English Perfect. Transactions of the Philological Society 112(3), 319–343.Google Scholar
McFadden, Thomas
(2017) On the Disappearance of the BE perfect in Late Modern English. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 49(2), 159–175.Google Scholar
McFadden, Thomas, & Alexiadou, Artemis
(2006) Auxiliary Selection and Counterfactuality in the History of English and Germanic. In Jutta M. Hartmann, & Lászlo Molnárfi (Eds.), Comparative Studies in Germanic Syntax (237–262). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
(2010) Perfects, Resultatives, and Auxiliaries in Earlier English. Linguistic Inquiry 41(3), 389–425.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce
(1985) Old English Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Mustanoja, Tauno F.
(1960) A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar
R Development Core Team
(2014) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from www​.R​-project​.org.Google Scholar
Rydén, Mats, & Brorström, Sverker
(1987)  The Be/Have Variation with Intransitives in English: With Special Reference to the Late Modern Period . Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Shannon, Thomas F.
(1995) Toward a Cognitive Explanation of Perfect Auxiliary Variation: Some Modal and Aspectual Effects in the History of Germanic. American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures 7(2), 129–163.Google Scholar
Sorace, Antonella
(2000) Gradients in Auxiliary Selection with Intransitive Verbs. Language 76(4), 859–890.Google Scholar
Werner, Valentin
(2016) Rise of the Undead? BE-perfects in World Englishes. In Valentin Werner, Elena Seoane, & Cristina Suárez-Gómez (Eds.), Re-assessing the Present Perfect (259–294). Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Wischer, Ilse
(2004) The Have-Perfect in Old English. In Christian Kay, Simon Horobin, & Jeremy Smith (Eds.), New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics (243–255). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Yerastov, Yuri
(2015) A Construction Grammar Analysis of the Transitive Be Perfect in Present-Day Canadian English. English Language and Linguistics 19(1), 157–178.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

No author info given
2021.  In Lost in Change [Studies in Language Companion Series, 218], Crossref logo
Hundt, Marianne
2021.  In Lost in Change [Studies in Language Companion Series, 218], ► pp. 199 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 june 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.