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English Historical Linguistics: Change in structure and meaning
Edited by Bettelou Los, Claire Cowie, Patrick Honeybone and Graeme Trousdale
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 358] 2022
► pp. 225–242

Chapter 9
Should with non-past reference

A corpus-based diachronic study

 | RWTH Aachen University
This chapter combines a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of the use of should with non-past reference in the historical periods Old English, Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE). It is based on data from the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts and the Middle English Dictionary. The quantitative analysis detects a few late ME examples, but establishes EModE as the period when should with non-past reference became firmly established, and from the qualitative analysis the conclusion is derived that should as a competitor of the present subjunctive in mandative constructions developed as a result of its meaning extension from obligation to other shades of non-fact modality.
Keywords: quantitative analysis, qualitative interpretation, mandative construction, Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), Early Modern English (EModE), meaning extension, main clause, relative clause, noun clause
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Setting the scene
  • 2.Structure of the paper and research method
  • 3.Uses of should in the historical periods of English
  • 4.Quantitative analysis
    • 4.1Old English
    • 4.2Middle English
    • 4.3Early Modern English
  • 5.Interpretation of the quantitative results
  • 6.Summary and conclusion
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.358.09moe
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