David Denison In their corpus Ryden and Brorstrom recorded the construction 40 times altogether with 17 different verbs (for example ADVANCE, COME, MIS- CARRY, MELT), but apart from GO they do not find it after the 1860/70s (1987: 25). (Nor do I in my corpus.) Their explanation for this curious and apparendy pleonastic doubling of auxiliaries is that it stressed the resulta- tive aspect more emphatically than the BE perfect alone, which was ambiguous between past action and resultant state. Notice that the effect of (123) in clauses with an adverbial of duration can be achieved in PDE by such expressions as: (124) a. He has been away since four o'clock, b. Yve been back a fortnight ('two weeks') with a predicative in place of the past participle, suggesting that the functional need has survived the general obsolescence of the B E perfect (and perhaps that gone in BE gone should now be analysed as a predicative). 39 The /0-phrase of (123a), however, suggests that has/had been gone still contained verbal GO in the late eighteenth century. 3.3.2.4 Perfect of main verb BE A peculiar use of the perfect has arisen with main verb BE, allowing the latter to behave under certain circumstances as if it were a verb of motion: 40 (125) Have you been to Paris? This BE + /0-phrase in the sense Visit' cannot be used without perfect HAVE — or alternatively, can only occur in past participle form: (126) a. ** Were you ever to Paris, (cf. Were you ever in Paris?) b. **I may be to Paris, (cf. I may go to Paris.) Warner (1993: 45, 64), following the OED, explicidy suggests that BE + directional phrase was grammatical with forms other than been until c. 1760, though the QfiDhas only 'modern' (i.e. c. 1887) citations (s.v. be v. B6). (It is the construction of (128) which is well attested in earlier English.) Here is the modern construction: (127) a. 'Have you then been to Sir Robert?' 'I have been to Cavendish-square, but there, it seems, he has not appeared all night' (1782 Burney, Cecilia (Bell, 1890) II.v.140 [WWP]) 138 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Syntax b. 'I've beenl says Jack, 'to Orchard-street to-night, | To see what play this Milky Dame could write.' [original italics for Orchard-street and Milky Dame\ (1791 Ann Yearsley, Earl Goodwin (Robinson), Epilogue p. 92 [WWP]) c. he had ben to the West-Indies (1795 Benjamin Dearborn, Columbian Grammar 114 [Sundby, Bjo'rge & Haugland]) Sundby, Bjo'rge & Haugland (1991: 291) quote (127c) from a usage book, where it is apparendy castigated as improper and vulgar. It is unclear to me whether the 'impropriety' marks a recent innovation or a relic. Visser points out that its meaning of 'go and come back' is shared with the somewhat older construction where to introduces an infinitive rather than an NP (1963-73: section 175): (128) To-day, after I had been to see additional houses taken on for the Armenian refugees, I dropped into the new shop of an old acquaintance (1918 Bell, Letters 11.442 (31 Jan.)) Example (127b) also contains a /^-infinitive. Note, however, that older occurrences like (128), especially in counterfactual use, can be hard to distinguish from modal, BE: (129) I am sure had I been to undergo onything of that nature I would hae skreigh'd ['screeched'] out at once (1816 Scott, Antiquary, 2nd edn. I.xi.233 [Visser]) (130) I am glad you were to see the Miners' Committee: you evidently learn a great deal that way (1891 Sidney Webb, Letters 163 1.304 (18 Sep.)) However, modal BE has been confined effectively to finite use (see 3.3.5.2 below), ruling out the perfect of modal BE found in (129), while BE 'go in order to . . . and come back', as apparently in (130), 41 is now only possible with the perfect, so the two usages are in complementary distribution. The OED implicitly relates the 'motion-verb' use of BE to the nine- teenth-century BE off/away, 'a graphic expression for to go at once, take oneself off (s.v. beBJb). Perhaps more recent still (because not mentioned in the OED) is an obviously analogical pattern whose locative phrase does not involve the preposition to: (131) a. Have you been across the Humber Bridge? b. Vve never been round Manchester Town Hall J 39 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 David Denison And another development in colloquial BrE has and + past participle instead of to + infinitive, with connotations of criticism: (132) They've been and spilled wine on the floor. (PDE [Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik]) On this see further section 3.6.6.7 below. 3.3.2.5 Unreality and double perfect A correlation has developed between unrealised action and the use of the HAVE perfect in certain contexts. The prescriptive tradition frowns upon some of the patterns with double use of HAVE, e.g. would have liked to have gone, consisting of the two verbal groups would have liked and to have gone, even though each is well formed. Some examples are unreal conditionals, where HAVE may appear in the protasis, the apodosis (see 3.3.2.2 above), or both, but the usage is not confined to conditionals: (133) a. I intended to have been at Chichester this Wednesday — but on account of this sore throat I wrote him (Brown) my excuse yesterday (1818 Keats, Letters 98 p. 257 (Dec.)) b. *Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead? (1849-50 Dickens, David Copperfteld xlvii.587) c. 'I did so want to have gone with him,' answered she, looking wistfully towards the town. (1850 Gaskell, Moorland Cottage iii.291) (134) a. if you I will so dismiss you through that doorway, that you had better have been motherless from your cradle. (1855-7 Dickens, LittleDorritl.v.51) b. since Miss Brooke decided that it [sc. a puppy] had better not have been born. (1871-2 George Eliot, Middlemarch iii.30) In (133) the HAVE would nowadays tend to appear in the higher clause (/ had intended to be, I had thought he was dead, I had so wanted to go); further exam- ples like (133b) are given as (494). The frequent use of HAVE as a signal of unreality, always in the form of an infinitive when in an apodosis, since there has to be a modal there, can lead to a parallel use of infinitive have in the protasis too, even if finite HAVE is there already. The resulting double HAVE is still regarded as non- standard, but it has been found since the fifteenth century and is very frequent in colloquial PDE. In the following literary examples it is part of the depiction of non-standard, lower-class or dialectal speech, though in 140 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Syntax (135c) the fictional speaker is a highly educated young American and the spelling <of> may serve to contrast non-standard Fd've been with standard wouldn't've noticed: (135) a. and if Yd ha known it, I'd ha' christened poor Jack's mermaid wi' some grand gibberish of a name. (1848 Gaskell, Mary Barton xiii.159) b. T'm thankful you begin with "well!" If you y ha 9 begun with "but," as you did afore, I'd not ha' listened to you . . .' (1851-3 Gaskell, Cranford xiv.129) c. . . . 'Did he notice?' I said. 'Your dad?' 'Naw. He was three sheets to the wind. If Yd of been the bartender [original emphasis on bar] at the Oak Room he wouldn't have noticed.' (1992 Tartt, Secret History ii.57) d. 'Well, I raly would not [original emphasis] ha' believed it, unless I had ha' happened to ha' been here!' said Mrs. Sanders. (1836-7 Dickens, Pickwick xxvi.393) e. 'I'll swear there ain't no ring there,' she said. 'I should 'a' seen it if there had 'a been' (1907 Nesbit, Enchanted Castle iv.87) f. I wish we hadn'ta moved so fast with the sonofabitch. (1987 Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities (Cape, 1988) xix.409) The syntagm seen in the first clause of (135a) is variously expanded as had have Ved and would have Ved, both by syntacticians and in attested instances, though it is commonest with contracted'd for the first verb. Suppose we treat the construction as involving double HAVE (certainly correct for (135d-f )). 42 One analysis would treat the first HAVE as modal, since it appears to be followed by an infinitive. It is then anomalous in lacking an obligation sense and in not requiring to, as in the pattern (136) Before an X-ray they have to have gone without food for a whole day. Example (136) shows how modal HAVE normally behaves. An alternative analysis of (135d—f), which I prefer, takes both HAVES as perfect, the first marking anteriority (central use of the perfect) and the second unreality (secondary use): each function is separately realised. The morphological oddity then consists in the fact that the second auxiliary is an infinitive rather than a past participle despite being in the HAVE perfect, rather as Dutch auxiliaries followed by an infinitive behave when they themselves have a perfect auxiliary (Geerts, Haeseryn, de Rooij & van der Toorn 1984: 523-5). 43 141 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 David Denison Further evidence of a strong association between unreality and the infinitive of HAVE is the kind of sentence illustrated by (137a): (137) a. Why couldn't you have done what I asked? b. Why couldn't you do what I asked? Example (137a) is given by Palmer as a surprising variant of the expected (137b) and is used, he claims, to resolve a possible ambiguity between present conditional could and the intended meaning of past possibility, 'Why weren't you able to . . . ?' (1990: 97). As he points out, though, the form (137a) has a natural reading which is also inappropriate: Why wouldn't you have been able to . . . ?' He suggests that this new ambiguity may be less important. Perhaps, rather, the unreality suggested by HAVE CYou didn't do what I asked. Why not?') is what is most salient. Finally here we must note that a new stressed form, of, has been created from the unstressed enclitic y ve\ (138) Had I known of your illness I should not of written in such fiery phrase in my first Letter. (1819 Keats, Letters 149 p. 380 (5 Sep.)) Many speakers thus apparently fail to see any connection between a non- initial, infinitival occurrence of HAVE in a verbal group and the normal aux- iliary. The spelling is appearing more and more often in literary representations of dialogue, and not always — as it was in literature until the mid-twentieth century — as a mark of non-standard usage; cf. (135c). 3.3.2.6 Clipped perfect Incomplete perfect clauses may lack subject NP and HAVE; for interroga- tives the equivalent ellipsis is of HAVE and/or subject NP: (139) a. 'Been pretty hot today,' he remarked. 'Is it a record?' I asked eagerly. (1953 Hardey, Go-Between (Heinemann, 1971) viii.104 [Visser]) b. Gerald went up to the woman. 'Taken much?' he asked (1907 Nesbit, Enchanted Castle iii.62) Visser suggests that such forms 'may have been current for a long time in spontaneous conversation', but that they 'did not become common in written or printed English until the beginning of the twentieth century' (1963—73: section 2054). (His generous collection of examples includes just one from the nineteenth century and a highly dubious one from the early seventeenth.) We may add: 142 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Syntax (140) a. I shall insinuate some of these Creatures into a Comedy some day Scene, a litde Parlour . Ha! Hunt! got into you<r> new house? Ha! M fs Novello seen Altam and his Wife? (1818 Keats, Utters 98 p. 254 (18 Dec.)) b. JACK. Whiere is your husband? RACHAEL. Gone, as a last hope, to try to borrow. (1832 Jerrold, Rent Day Il.i, in Works (Bradbury & Evans, 1854) VIII.23 [ARCHER]) c. ROY. Well, father, I've done it! GRIFFITH. Done what? [Sees him] Enlistedl (1899 Herne,^. GriffithDavenport IVp. 149 [ARCHER]) Such elliptical forms are part of a broader phenomenon in which a string may be ellipted from (usually) the beginning of a clause. 3.3.3 Progressive: B E + -ing The progressive construction, as in I was swimming, has undergone some of the most striking syntactic changes of the IModE period. By early in the ModE period the BE + -ing pattern was already well established, and its overall frequency has increased continuously ever since. Dennis (1940) estimates an approximate doubling every century from 1500, though with a slowing-down in the eighteenth century and a spurt at the beginning of the nineteenth (Strang 1982: 429). Arnaud, working from a corpus of private letters and extrapolating to the speech of literate, middle-class people, esti- mates a threefold increase during the nineteenth century alone (1983: 84). 3.3.3.1 Meaning and grammaticalisation The rules for use of the progressive had already been established in the gramma r before our period — in the seventeenth century, according to Strang (1982: 429) — though, as she says, 'in all generations, including the present, there are contexts in which choice is possible, and the choices of some are surprising to others' (1982: 430). Here are some instances where nonuse of the progressive is odd to my ears: (141) a. Now I will return to Fanny — it rains. (1818 Keats, Utters 75 p. 170 (3 Jul.)) b. if I had refused it — I should have behaved in a very bragadochio dunderheaded manner (ibid. 98 p. 257 (Dec.)) c. How is Mr. Evelyn? How does he bear up against so sudden a reverse? (1840 Bulwer-Lytton, Money V.ii p. 226) 143 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 David Denison d. What do they say? asked Margaret of a neighbour in the crowd, as she caught a few words, clear and distinct from the general murmur. (1848 Gaskell, Mary Barton v.72) e. \ Dover says he will take a good deal of the plate back again, and any of the jewellery we like. He really behaves very well.' (1871-2 Eliot, Middlemarch lviii.596) f. Let me know how your chap. [= chapter] proceeds & what you think of no I [sic — number one]. (1890 Dowson, Letters 105 p. 156 (25 Jun.)) g. Suddenly he caught sight of a canvas with its face to the wall he wondered what it did there. (1919 Maugham, Moon & Sixpence (Heinemann, 1955) xxxix.152) And here are some converse examples: (142) a. \ A water-party; and by some accident she was falling over- board. He caught her.' (1816 Austen, Emma viiifxxvi] .218 [Phillipps]) b. What I should have lent you ere this if I could have got it, was belonging to poor Tom (1819 Keats, Letters 110 p. 277 (Feb.)) According to Strang, the use of the progressive altered in character durin g the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, at least as far as literary narrative was concerned (1982: 441—2): In narrative prose of the first half of the eighteenth century the construction is truly at home only in certain types of subordinate clause, especially temporal, relative or local In the latter half of the eighteenth century the figures rise overall, but proportionately most in non- subordinate use [footnote omitted], so that in the century as a whole there are nearly three times as many uses in subordinate clauses, though these clauses are themselves in a minority. Taking the nineteenth century as a whole the overall rate of occurrence has more than doubled, but the rate in non-subordinate clauses has nearly quadrupled. In the twentieth-century [sic] the overall rate has again more than doubled, but again this conceals a near-quadrupling in non-subordinate clauses . See also section 3.3.3.4 for another approach to the grammaticalisation of the progressive. Strang's analysis of the spread of the progressive is subtle. She notes that Richardson, for example, distinguishes the language of Pamela from other letter-writers in the eponymous novel by a greatly raised rate of usage of the progressive. Strang counts instances in novels around 1800 and generally finds a huge increase in the use of the progressive in past tense narrative prose between the first or early novel(s) and subsequent 144 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Syntax ones by the same author. Perhaps the progressive was not yet fully accepted in the conventions of publishing even though already common in speech, and the craft of novel-writing involved, amongst other things, developing a skill in handling this construction (1982: 448): The development of the [progressive] construction is of greater significance for the novelist than for any other kind of writer, and it is hardly surprising that around 1800, when all the major extensions of its functions became available, beginning novelists should experience some difficulty in coming to terms with this powerful new resource. She goes on to speculate about developments in the form of the novel, including the predilection for first person and epistolary novels before the progressive was fully mature. According to Strang (1982: 440), the combination of a modal and the progressiv e was rare in literature before the early nineteenth century. (It was certainly possible from OE times - see Denison 1993a: 383-4.) Note too her suspicion that there was more freedom to negate the progressive in the nineteenth century than previously (1982: 453). There is modest but inconclusive support for both suggestions in ARCHER. As for the meaning or function of the progressive, Strang adopts Bodelsen's (1936/7) claim that 'the central function of the construction is to present the action of a verb as being an activity rather than an event, result or state of affairs' (1982:443) and applies it to the eighteenth century, since then it fits in with the progressive being restricted to human or human-like subjects, and to certain verbs. With the early nineteenth- century expansion in the ranges of possible subjects and of verbs, she concludes that the progressive was becoming more temporal in function (1982: 446). Visser takes a ruthless line against those who find a multiplicity of functions. He prefers to offer a central function which will account for most or all of its uses (1963—73: section 1806): The Expanded Form is that colligation [= syntactic pairing of categories] of a form of to be with an -ing which is used when the speaker chooses to focalize the listener's attention on the POST-INCEPTION PHASE of what is, was or will be going on at a point in time in the present, past or future. Other alleged meanings are contextual, or due to adverbials, or inherent in the semantics of the lexical verb. He claims (1963-73: section 1830) that his formula covers even the use of the progressive with future meaning, as in: 145 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 David Denison (143) We are opening an agency in Cuba soon. (1958 Greene, Havana V.ii(3).204) 3.3.3.2 Restrictions on lexical verb In general the progressive is far less often used with verbs of stative meaning like BE, HAVE, KNOW, OWN than with nonstative verbs. However, with certain stative verbs it has become possible to use a progressive to mark a transient state or behaviour: (144) a. He was living then in Park Lane, in the house Lord Woolcomb has now. (1895 Wilde, Ideal Husband II p. 80 [ARCHER]) b. Oh my dearest ones it's so wonderful here — I can't tell you how much I'm loving it. (1917 Bell, Letters 11.414 (1 Jun.)) c. The old people are behaving themselves quite rational — playing bezique in the drawing-room. (1911 Besier, Lady Patricia Il.i p. 96 [ARCHER]) It is difficult to be precise on dating this phenomenon, but it seems likely that frequent usage, at least, is fairly recent. In Visser's material on verbs resistant to the progressive, for instance, neither LIVE nor LOVE + inanimate object occurs in the progressive before the twentieth century (1963-73: sections 1845,1847). Note, however, such early progressives of 'resistant' verbs as: (145) a. The tars are wishing for a lick, as they call it, at the Spanish galleons. (1803 Naval Chron. X. 258 [ОЕЩ b. Do not live as if I was not existing — Do not forget me (1820 Keats, Letters 216 p. 490 (?May)) With the main verb BE itself, the progressive can also signal imperma- nence. Compare: (146) a. He я malicious. b. He is being malicious. Apart from a couple of examples from the fifteenth century and some doubtful theological usages from various periods (see Denison 1993a: 395), the progressive of type (146b) is first recorded in the notably informal usage of Keats, as Jespersen noticed (1909—49: IV 225): (147) You will be glad to hear . how diligent I have been, and am being. (1819 Keats, Utters 137 p. 357 (11 Jul.)) Certain reference works (Mosse 1938: section 266, Visser 1963—73: section 1834) wrongly adduce earlier examples of the following type: 146 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Syntax (148) a. but this is being wicked, for wickedness sake. (1761 Johnston, Chrysalll l.x.65) b. I ought to have paid my respects to her if possible. // was being very deficient. (1816 Austen, Emma II.xiv[xxxii] .280) c. and she was so happy herself, that there was no being severe (ibid. III.xv[li].444) (It is Phillipps (1970: 117) who cites (148c), claiming more cautiously that by such gerundial usage, 'Jane Austen does approach the modern construction'.) Mosse and Visser ignore the fact that examples like (148) do not appear to contain a progressive verbal group is/was being2X all: rather the verb is just copula is or was, linking (usually) an inanimate pronoun subject (this, it, there) to a gerundial phrase being + AP. 44 The subject is not an argu- ment of the adjective phrase. A true progressive of BE would be as in (149): (149) I was being very deficient. Given the structural assumptions of section 3.3 above, we would have very differen t analyses: 45 (150) a. It [ v was ] [ Np being very deficient ] (for (148b)) b. I [ v was being ] [ Ap very deficient ] (for (149)) The date of introduction of the genuine (149) type, and the kind of text it first appeared in, have an important bearing on the progressive passive, which also contains a syntagm of the type is being, see section 3.3.3.4 below. Where the complement of being is a noun phrase rather than an adjectival phrase, we must wait until well into the nineteenth century for good exam- ples: 46 (151) a. I really think this illness is being a good thing for me. (1834 R. H. Froude Rem. (1838) I. 378 [OED\) b. One who studies is not being a fool (1871 Meredith, Harry Richmond (Scribner's, 1910) xxx.323 [Visser]) Visser devotes his (1963—73: section 1841) to the progressive of HAVE, a verb which in origin has the stative meaning 'possess'. The facts are of pos- sible significance to the divergence of HAVE into auxiliary and nonauxiliary verbs, as we shall see in section 3.3.9. With a direct object, HAVE hardly occurs in the progressive in ModE before the nineteenth century, and then never in the meaning 'possess'. Some of Visser's citations can be predated from the quotations in the OED, and no doubt there are still earlier ones to be found; see Warner (1995: 546) for an example of havingfun in 1787 Blake: 147 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 [...]... analysed as an inflection, then most of the above forms have a negative counterpart Other possible members of the category Modal are discussed in section 3. 3.5.2 below 3. 3.5.1 Central modals Here we discuss a number of changes in the meaning and usage of individual modals, starting with the modals of possibility and permission The verb M A Y is undergoing a particularly wide-ranging set of changes Early in... a But father said they might keep the egg (19 04 Nesbit, PhoenixiAS) b And they wanted to know whether there was permission for their crossing or what was to happen to them if they might not come down to the river but they were not happy till I wrote them an order to say they might cross and continue on their way (1918 Bell, Letters 11 .45 0 (17 Mar.)) See too the examples in Visser (19 63 73: section... (wert) ^ were be were affected the subjunctive almost throughout the recorded history of English, though as we shall see, there have recendy been signs of partial revival The indicative has become identical to the subjunctive throughout the past tense, and everywhere in the present tense apart from 3 SG of nonmodal verbs, where the indicative has -s, the subjunctive -(£> Only the verb B E preserves fuller... of literary people might have wanted to distance themselves from other, older and more conservative groups To explain the clustering of examples, two hypotheses are open to us (the Malmesbury data make it highly unlikely that the Southey/Coleridge circle actually initiated the development of the progressive passive): 52 (1 64) a The data are a mere accident of sampling and of the subsequent status of. .. by pattern (166), progressive BE 4- predicative, which was not in use before the nineteenth century (3. 3 .3. 2 above): (166) Jim was being stupid/ a pest Hence the semantic and syntactic oddity of the progressive passive would explain the fierceness of some people's reactions to it The gap left by absence of (165) could be filled by the passival (3. 3 .3. 3 above) Although the passival, (167a), looked exactly... table 3. 5 Is there still a present subjunctive? The paradigm even of the verb B E shows complete identity of infinitive, imperative and present subjunctive (under the form be) Since the same is true of all other verbs too, and since there is considerable overlap of function between the three forms, a persuasive analysis treats them as genuinely identical in PDE morphology, the 'base form' of the verb... Subjunctive In the history of English as of other Indo-European languages, there has been a choice of three moods for finite verbs: indicative, subjunctive and imperative (We defer discussion of the imperative from the context of verbal mood to that of clause type, section 3. 5 .4 below.) While the indicative was the unmarked mood, the subjunctive was the set of forms chosen typically to mark doubt,... forward by the horses; (1 838 -9 Dickens, Nickleby v.52) On the other hand it must sometimes have been difficult to avoid the progressive passive, as the following example demonstrates: (160) Polyxena at the moment of her sacrifice on the tomb of Achilles, as the bride that was being married to him at the moment of his death (1 846 De Quincey, 'The Antigone of Sophocles', Taifs Edinburgh Magazine 13, p 162... Palmer observes, ' M A Y is the most neutral modal' and perhaps 'the closest form in English to the subjunctive of other languages' (1990: 111) However, (194b) is now becoming rather formal, and expedients like (194c) are in turn taking over (Visser 19 63- 73: section 1680) It is interesting that the negative mayn't, found from c 1 631 (Denison 1993a: 30 9), has become very rare in the present century Palmer... dialects 166 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Syntax The demise of the present subjunctive (section 3. 3 .4. 1 above) has led to new means of expressing an exclamatory wish: (1 94) a The devil take him! b May the devil take him! c I hope the devil takes/may take/will take him Thus (194a), which now survives only in formulaic utterances, was replaced mainly by (194b) in the ModE . head of its phrase to a modifier of the lexical head. If there has been a reanalysis of the progressive, what are the consequences of locating (the most rapid phase of) the changeover in the. (109) above. 3. 3 .3. 3 'Passival' Before it became possible to combine the progressive with the passive (on which see 3. 3 .3 .4 below), certain verbs could be used in the active progres- sive . (1 936 /7) claim that &apos ;the central function of the construction is to present the action of a verb as being an activity rather than an event, result or state of affairs' (1982 :44 3)