One Language, Two Grammars? - part 6 ppt

A detailed analysis of the examples found in the corpus involving the greatest number of instances (the present-day British newspapers illustrated in Figure 11.5) reveals that it is useful to distinguish at least two morphosyntactic categories of the verb lay:a)laying,b)to lay (compared to the remaining uses Ø lay, lays, laid). Firstly, the overall entrenchment value of about 75 per cent for gerundial complements is not reached if the verb lay appears in the shape of an -ing form itself, as in example (8a). In cases like these (cf. the column represent- ing all instances of the category laying in Figure 11.6), a complement involv- ing another -ing form is obviously felt to be less acceptable than in other morphosyntactic environments (cf. also Ross 1972). Instead, an infinitival complement tends to be used to avoid a clash of two -ing forms. (8) a. The public hearing has been set to start on Nov 24 and is certain to assume the drama of another show trial of the woman who, while no longer laying claim to be ‘mother of the nation’, has unabashed ambition for high political office. (Daily Telegraph 1997) b. they found it difficult to lay claim to be British. (Guardian 1995) This effect can be accounted for by the horror aequi Principle: The horror aequi Principle involves the widespread (and presumably universal) tendency to avoid the use of formally (near-) identical and (near-) adjacent (non-coordinate) grammatical elements or structures. (Rohdenburg 2003a: 236) 24/ 35 24/ 52 693/ 910 23/ 31 20/42 615/783 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% to lay laying remaining uses to - i ng all instances excl. pre-modified uses of claim Figure 11.6 The distribution of non-finite complements dependent on the verb-noun collocation lay claim(s ) in various British present- day newspapers for 1990–2004 21 21 p < 0.1%*** for both contrasts between to lay/laying/remaining uses. Non-finite complements 221 Bolinger (1979: 44) remarks that ‘The closer the echo, the worse it sounds. Two -ings with a preposition are better than two without.’ 22 Accordingly, compared to verbs immediately followed by non-finite complements (as in starting doing or to start to do), the horror aequi effect is weakened in the case of a gerundial construction complementing verb-noun collocations (as in laying claim to doing), because here the two -ing forms are not directly adjacent with the noun claim and the preposition to providing a buffer. It is clear that once the gerundial complement is almost fully established, there is virtually no possibility of avoiding it by means of the infinitive any more. In horror aequi contexts such as in laying cl aim to (playing) an important role, we often find that (non-finite) complementation escapes into the domain of non-sentential structures. In cases like these, a non-finite complement form (and therefore a sequence of two -ing forms) can be dispensed with altogether and replaced by a (non-sentential) NP object (see Vosberg 2003a, 2006, for the verb avoid). The second potential horror aequi context is represented by the morpho- syntactic category to lay, as in example (8b). In cases where the matrix expression takes a marked infinitive itself, the horror aequi Principle predicts that another to-infinitive complementing the collocation would tend to be largely avoided. In other words, we would expect the proportion of gerundial complements (cf. the column representing all instances of the category to lay in Figure 11.6) to be much higher than for the remaining uses of lay. However, this does not turn out to be the case. Thus, a string of two infinitives is obviously not judged to be as unusual and awkward as two successive -ing forms. One major reason why structures like (8b) are fully acceptable is the fact that the old and well-known infinitive is still much more entrenched in the English complementation system than the gerund. In addition to the horror aequi Principle, there seems to be yet another extra-semantic factor determining the choice of non-finite complement forms. The noun claim is occasionally qualified by grammatical or lexical elements such as determiners or adjectives like the ones in (9a/b). (9) a. His grandfather, a stucco decorator, could lay some claim to be an artist (Daily Telegraph 1995) b. A gold medallist at Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta, Redgrave can already lay justifiable claim to be regarded as Britain’s greatest Olympian . (Daily Telegraph 2000) It follows from Figure 11.7 (see the columns representing all instances) that these premodified uses of claim tend to prefer infinitival complements rather 22 It should be noted at this stage that surface (phonetic) identity alone does not seem to be a trigger of horror aequi. It is considered objectionable only when it coincides with a maximum of grammatical similarity (see also Hoekstra and Wolf 2004). Thus, Bolinger’s (1979: 44) exclusively euphonic motivation mentioned above should be viewed with caution. 222 One Language, Two Grammars? than -ing forms. According to the Complexity Principle, this does not come as a surprise, because qualification clearly increases the (cognitive) complex- ity of the expression so that the (presumably) more explicit complement option – the infinitive – is preferred in these cases. So far, two extra-semantic factors have been shown to exert considerable influence on the choice of competing complement types: horror aequi and cognitive complexity. One of the most intriguing issues in multifactorial analyses is the question of how and to what extent different factors influence (weaken or reinforce) one another. As for the area under investigation, there does not seem to be any interference between the two factors here: exclusion of the competing factor (see the right columns in Figures 11.6 and 11.7) always shows (more or less) the same contrast as suggested by the figures representing all examples. 5 Can’t stand A distributional difference between the two national varieties is also quite evident in the case of infinitival and gerundial complements of the verb stand used in the sense of ‘bear’ 24 and preceded by the auxiliaries can or could. All cases considered involve an overt marker of negativity such as the particle not 83/141 658/856 78/127 615/783 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% pre-modified uses of claim unqualified uses of claim to -ing all instances excl. to lay/laying Figure 11.7 The distribution of non-finite complements dependent on the verb-noun collocation lay claim(s ) in various British present- day newspapers 23 23 p < 0.1%*** for both contrasts between premodified and unqualified uses. 24 This excludes cases such as the following: (i) But pardon me I beseech you, good master Freeman, the day weares, and I haue farre to go, therefore I cannot stand to tell out the rest: but at our next meeting in troth you shall knowe all; therfore let vs paye our shotte and be walking. (EEPF: Edward Sharpham, The Discouerie of the Knights of the Poste, 1597) Non-finite complements 223 (including the corresponding contracted forms) or certain non-assertive adverbial expressions like no longer or hardly. 26 (10) Pon my honour, I can’t stand seeing a whole family going to destruction! (NCF1: Susan Ferrier, Marriage, 1818) As can be seen from Figure 11.8, the construction was very rare in the texts covering the last two centuries, and the gerundial complement option has been losing ground to the infinitival variant in both BrE and AmE. 27 The collection of present-day newspapers shows that in AmE the decline of -ing complements is much further advanced than in the parent variety (see also the evidence provided by Tottie 2002c). Additionally, AmE makes use of this construction (involving non-finite complements) much more fre- quently than BrE: 0.27 instances pmw in the British newspapers for 1990–5 and 0.7 instances pmw in the transatlantic newspapers for the same period. Again, there is a highly suggestive correlation between the overall frequency and developmental stages. It should be mentioned, though, that the frequency 17/19 6/16 125/193 279/465 18/22 114/ 363 57/ 170 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 19th c. and early 20th c. late 20th c. 1990–5 1996–2004 -ing BrE AmE (fiction) (newspapers) Figure 11.8 The development of non-finite complements dependent on the verb cannot/could not stand in various historical and present-day corpora (NCF, EAF, MNC, LNC, ETC, BNC/ wridom1;t90–04,g90–04,d91–00,m93–00,i93–94,i02–04;W90–92, L92–99,D92–95,N01) 25 25 An American corpus comprising late twentieth-century texts, and thus being equivalent to the British National Corpus (BNC), is still under construction. 26 Br–Am contrast: p < 0.1%*** for both 1990–5 and 1996–2004; diachronic contrast: p ¼ 0.13% < 1%** for the fictional British corpora; all others n.s. 27 The analysis excludes, however, interrogatives such as (i) How can you stand to watch this? (Los Angeles Times 1997) It is found that these uses of stand are predominantly followed by infinitival complements. 224 One Language, Two Grammars? of this construction has been decreasing in AmE, while in BrE it has remained nearly co nstant: 0.33 instances pmw in the British newspapers for 1996–2004 and 0.5 instances pmw in the corresponding American newspapers. The question as to which of the two auxiliaries is actually used (either can or could) does not seem to be very influential in the choice of the two non-finite complement forms (cf. Table 11.3, 28 lines 1a/b). However, the increasing tendency to use the (informal) contracted forms of the construction can/could þ not involving the verb stand obviously helps to delay the decline of gerundial complements (cf. Table 11.3, lines 2a/b). These findings are in accordance with the informal character of the -ing form as compared to the infinitival option (cf. Fanego 1996a: 75–6 for the situation in Early Modern English, and Miller 1993: 130 for non- standard varieties). 29 The previous section has shown that some kind of qualification of the predicate expression (lay some/justifiable claim) can preserve the accept- ability of infinitival complementation a bit longer than usual. Similar obser- vations can be made for the variable complementation of the verb (can’t) stand. Table 11.3 (lines 3a/b) shows that any adverbial material modifying the matrix expression and intervening between the modal auxiliary (can or could) and the main verb (stand) tends to increase the use of the infinitival comple- ment of this construction: compare the examples in (11a/b). (11)a. because she has been so traumatised by harassment from Baiul that she can no longer stand to hear the name Oksana. (Guardian 1997) Table 11.3 The distribution of non-finite complements dependent on the verb cannot/ could not stand (incl. contractions and non-affirmative adverbs) in various British newspapers for 1996–2004 BrE newspapers for 1996–2004 to -ing total 1a can þ negative form 112 173 (60.7%) 285 1b could þ negative form 74 106 (58.9%) 180 2a non-contracted form of can/could 65 53 (44.9%) 118 2b contracted form of can/could 121 226 (65.1%) 347 3a can/could þ seldom/barely/hardly/no longer þ stand cannot/ can’t/could not/ couldn’t þ really/even/longer þ stand 19 4 (17.4%) 23 3b remaining (straightforward) cases 167 275 (62.2%) 442 4 Total 186 279 (60.0%) 465 28 n.s. for lines 1a/b, p ¼ 0.01% < 0.1%** for 2a/b, p < 0.1%*** 3a/b. 29 It is, however, doubtful whether the Complexity Principle would be able to account for the preference of to-infinitives as complements of stand following non-contracted forms of can/ couldþnot, because it is far from clear whether the contraction is indicative of a cognitively less demanding structure. Non-finite complements 225 b. But I knew it wouldn’t happen because we couldn’t even stand to be in the same room together. (The Times 2000) The intervening material found here serves distinct syntactic and semantic functions: non-assertive adverbials (such as no longer or hardly) replace the negative particle not in order to create a negative context, while other kinds of adverbs (like even) preserve the negator. Ignoring this functional differ- ence, however, we might suggest that the Complexity Principle accounts for the results shown in Table 11.3 (lines 3a/b). The cognitively more complex environments provided by these adverbial modifications tend to accelerate the replacement of gerunds by to-infinitives as complements of the verb (can’t) stand . 30 6 Conclusion Focusing on a small number of verbs and verb-noun collocations in transi- tional stages of linguistic change mainly within the last two centuries, the present study has shown that both BrE and AmE follow the same trends in the development of non-finite complement variants, though at clearly different speeds. The process referred to as the ‘Great Complement Shift’ (gradual replacement of infinitives by gerunds, cf. have no business and lay claim in Table 11.4, column I) and sporadic reversals (cf. decline and can’t stand in Table 11.4, column I) have not affected the two national varieties to the same extent. Compared to BrE, the transatlantic variety leads the devel- opment in some areas (cf. have no business, can’t stand,inTable 11.4, column II) and lags behind it in others (cf. decline in Table 11.4, column II), while occasionally (cf. lay claim in Table 11.4, column II) it represents a case of lag and overtake. The contrasts established might be summarized in two differ- ent ways. Table 11.4 Summary of the findings Governing expression I General trend in non-finite complementation II Variety leading the trend III Variety showing a higher frequency have no business to ! -ing AmE AmE decline -ing ! to BrE BrE lay claim to ! -ing AmE (lag and overtake) BrE (can’t) stand -ing ! to AmE AmE 30 The analyses of the American corpora corresponding to the ones presented in Table 11.3 do not yield any significant results, yet the tendencies are the same as for the British corpora. 226 One Language, Two Grammars? Firstly, the case studies presented here suggest that, with the exception of the verb (can’t) stand, AmE is further advanced than BrE in those areas of non-finite complementation (compare columns I and II in Table 11.4 for have no business and lay claim) where the infinitive is about to be replaced by the gerund (cf., however, Allerton 1988: 11, 22–3), 31 and lags behind it where the gerund is on the decline (compare columns I and II in Table 11.4 for the verb decline). It is claimed elsewhere that, unlike BrE, the transatlantic variety is often found to favour the less formal and less explicit (cf. Chapters 4 and 10, respectively) grammatical option. These conclusions are supported by three of the four major findings discussed in this chapter: have no business, decline and lay claim (but not can’t stand) are among those governing expressions that still show (or once showed) a stronger inclination towards the less formal (cf. section 5) and less explicit (cf. section 3)-ing complement in AmE rather than in BrE. Secondly, it has been argued that the variety exhibiting a higher frequency in the use of a particular governing expression is also the one that is further advanced in the general development (compare columns II and III in Table 11.4). This hypothesis does not seem to be confirmed in the case of the collocation lay claim, which involves the somewhat muddled situation of lag and overtake. In addition to surveying the existing national contrasts, our analysis has identified three extra-semantic (and potentially universal) factors likely to delay or accelerate the rise or fall of the two non-finite complement options: a) extractions, b) horror aequi contexts and c) insertions/modifications. 31 According to Allerton (1988: 11, 22–3), both formal/written styles as well as American English in general are nowadays affected by a frequent and ‘unnatural’ over-use of the infinitive so that the distinction between infinitive and gerund made in informal/conversational British usage is lost in certain cases. Non-finite complements 227 12 The present perfect and the preterite JOHAN ELSNESS 1 Introduction Like a large number of other languages, English has two competing verbal constructions commonly used to refer to past time: the periphrastic present perfect and the synthetic preterite, as in, respectively, (1)Ihave seen him recently and (2)Isaw him recently. The distribution of the two constructions varies a great deal between languages, and also within individual languages. For example, German and French can easily have constructions like (3) Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen and (4)Jel’ai vu hier. However, the corresponding construction would not seem acceptable in English: (5)*Ihave seen him yesterday. The problem is that, unlike German and French, English puts very severe restrictions on the combination of the present perfect with specifications of a clearly defined temporal location wholly in the past. Instead, English gen- erally prefers the preterite in such cases. Moreover, the distinction between the two verb forms is drawn differently in American as compared with British English. While the basic rules are the same, a sentence like our example (1) above would often be preferred by speakers of BrE, while many speakers of AmE would be more likely to opt for (2). The point here is that, although the reference is clearly to past time, this time is not very precisely defined, which leaves considerable scope for individual judgement. In such cases there appears to be a distinct tendency 228 for AmE to select the preterite, BrE the present perfect, so that on the whole the latter verb form is more frequent in BrE than in AmE. In most kinds of text, however, the present perfect will be outnumbered by the preterite in both varieties, and by a wide margin. What has happened in both English and other languages is that the present perfect has increased in frequency over the centuries, at the expense of the preterite. This is in line with a more general tendency for synthetic forms to be replaced by periphrastic constructions (see, e.g., Zieglschmid 1930a/b). English seems to differ from many other languages, however, in that the present perfect may now be in decline. 2 The history of the present perfect and the preterite in English In Old English the preterite was the predominant verb form in references to past time. Even in OE, however, some constructions may be recognized as early instances of the present perfect, with HAVE (HABBAN) followed by a past participle. To begin with, this construction occurred only with tran- sitive verbs, but it gradually spread to other patterns. Besides, there was a similar construction with BE (WESAN), common with (intransitive) muta- tive verbs. In the early stages it is not always easy to draw the line between perfect constructions and constructions where HAVE is the main verb and the past participle has a clear adjectival function. In a major investigation of the present perfect in English (reported in Elsness 1997) my policy was to recognize as perfects all such HAVE constructions provided the reference was clearly to past time associated with the past-participial verb, irrespective of whether the participle was inflected for concord with the putative object, and also irrespective of whether the participle was pre- or postposed relative to this object. 1 For that investigation I collected a corpus consisting of texts dating all the way from Old English up to Present-Day English, in most cases concentrated in 50-year periods spread over 200-year intervals. In the case of the period 1750–1800 and the present day, both American and British English were represented. 2 Two of the constructions recognized as occurrences of the present perfect in the Old English section of my corpus are: (6) and we habbað Godes hus inne and ute clæne berypte. (From ‘Wulfstan’s Address to the English’) ‘and we have completely despoiled God’s houses inside and out’. 1 This pragmatic view of what constitutes a perfect construction is in line with that adopted in Denison (1993: 340–1). 2 For details of the composition of this corpus, see Elsness (1997). The present perfect and the preterite 229 (7) For ðæm we habbað nu ægðer forlæten ge ðone welan ge ðone wisdom. (From ‘On the State of Learning in England’) ‘Therefore we have now lost both the wealth and the wisdom.’ What happens in Old and Middle English is that the various perfect forms gradually become more frequent, at the expense of the preterite, taking over more and more of the semantic functions of that verb form. The growth and spread of the present perfect does not continue in the same way in the Modern English period, however. 3 In the AmE section of my corpus there is a marked drop in the proportion of present-perfect forms from 1750–1800 to the present day. In the BrE material the development within the Modern English period is more uncertain: the increase in the frequency of the present perfect levels off from 1550–1600 to 1750–1800 but may then seem to get a second wind in the last 200-year span. The figures for the present perfect (with auxiliary HAVE) and the preterite are set out in Table 12.1. Both active and passive forms are included in these figures but no progressives. 4 The development of the present perfect is further illustrated in Figure 12.1. Comparison of corpora from different periods is wrought with problems and complications. To put together corpora with similar textual compositions Table 12.1 The present perfect (with auxiliary HAVE) and the preterite as percentages of all past-referring verb forms in the history of English. Passive as well as active verb forms included (but not progressive forms). From the corpus used in Elsness (1997) Old English Early Middle English 1350–1400 1550–1600 1750–1800 BrE 1750–1800 AmE Present- day BrE Present- day AmE n ¼ 989 n ¼ 916 n ¼ 906 n ¼ 859 n ¼ 880 n ¼ 854 n ¼ 1883 n ¼ 1588 Present perfect 0.75.08.615.816.421.719.79.8 Preterite 83.379.166.662.662.057.761.976.2 3 A similar fate seems to have befallen the preterite perfect, or pluperfect, but here we shall concentrate on the present perfect. 4 The most numerous of the past-referring verb forms not included here are various combi- nations with modal auxiliaries. In addition a fair number of present-perfect constructions with auxiliary BE were recorded up until 1750–1800 (but outnumbered by the present perfect with HAVE from early Middle English onwards). Pluperfect constructions with both auxiliaries are also fairly common, as are progressive constructions in the most recent sections. In the early stages the perfect of mutative verbs commonly took auxiliary BE but the connection between type of verb and choice of auxiliary started to break down as early as at the beginning of the Middle English period. For a comparison of American and British English the BE perfect is in any case less relevant, as the predominance of the HAVE alternative was well nigh complete from the beginning of the Modern English period. For full details, see Elsness (1997: 267–9, 271–2, 322–7). 230 One Language, Two Grammars? [...]... reduced from three to two, i.e the same form is increasingly used for both the preterite and the past participle These are verbs with an -i- stem which used to have -a- in the preterite and -u- in the past participle: SHRINK, SING, SINK, SPRING, STINK With these there seems to be a tendency which is much stronger in colloquial AmE (and Australian English) than in BrE to use the -u- form even for the... preterite/past-participial forms This count does not include SHOW, which displays variation between shown and showed in the past participle 244 One Language, Two Grammars? linguistic change to have advanced further in AmE than in BrE, at least as far as the verb phrase is concerned: the continuing expansion of the progressive is one example; the use of identical forms for both the preterite and the past participle... evidence for the development of the present perfect over 232 One Language, Two Grammars? 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% OldEng EMidEng 1350– 1400 BrE 1550– 160 0 1750– 1800 PresDay AmE Figure 12.2 The present perfect (with HAVE, active/passive) as percentage of all past-referring verb forms when science category is disregarded in Present-Day English the past two centuries we shall look at some text categories separately... it seems that in most kinds of text the function of perfect auxiliary will account for between one- half and two- thirds of its occurrences and be by far its most common single function (see Elsness 1997: 84 and 2000/2001: 16, 36) The task of identifying present-perfect forms is compounded by the fact that the particular form have doubles as the infinitive form of HAVE.11 Also, it is obviously important... instance ¨ in Overgaard’s material appears in her 1940 corpus, where it is the only one (p 73).1 There are ten American negated subjunctives altogether in her material, to be compared with the 357 instances of affirmative American 1 The earliest instance given by Visser (1 966 : 847–8) is dated 19 36 248 One Language, Two Grammars? Table 13.1 Normalized frequencies of negated subjunctives in AmE, BrE and... (Behre 1934: 87ff.) Partly because of the decay of the morphological system in late Old English and Middle English, where for example -on and -en endings would be fused and where final unstressed -e would disappear, thus rendering subjunctive forms less distinctive, they became less and less often used They were supplanted by modal auxiliaries þ infinitives, particularly should-constructions, in different... used by ‘increasing numbers of speakers’ Focusing on spoken and non-standard varieties of BrE, Miller (2004a/b) likewise reports cases where the present perfect is used in combination with a clear adverbial specification of past time, e.g ‘Some of us have been to 242 One Language, Two Grammars? Table 12.5 The present perfect of twenty high-frequency lexical verbs with personal pronoun subjects ( I, you,... on a par with frequency adverbs and change the time-honoured order if there were no other influencing factors I will suggest three such factors 3.3.2 Omitted auxiliary Visser (1 966 : 843–7) quotes a number of writers who regard the (affirmative) one- word subjunctive as an innovation and as an abbreviated form of should þ infinitive Thus Myers (1952: 169 ) says the construction can be explained as short... to stir or awaken love’ as ‘that you stir not up nor awaken love’ (CobuildDirect Corpus: UK books; fiction & non-fiction Text: B0000000917) 254 One Language, Two Grammars? (21) Ain’t he always in trouble? You forget I known him longer than you CobuildDirect Corpus: US books; fiction & non-fiction Text: B9000001192 See also cases like (22) the Tories must rely on slick delivery of the few policies... them alive In that case, the subjunctive will naturally be preceded by not 8 I owe this example to Professor Gunter Rohdenburg ¨ 2 56 One Language, Two Grammars? 3.3.4 German influence Thirdly, it was suggested above that the return of the subjunctive in AmE could at least partly be due to European immigrants transferring their native speech habits, which featured the use of subjunctive forms, to their . 83.379. 166 .66 2 .66 2.057. 761 .9 76. 2 3 A similar fate seems to have befallen the preterite perfect, or pluperfect, but here we shall concentrate on the present perfect. 4 The most numerous of the past-referring. between one- half and two- thirds of its occurrences and be by far its most common single function (see Elsness 1997: 84 and 2000/2001: 16, 36) . The task of identifying present-perfect forms is com- pounded. negativity such as the particle not 83/141 65 8/8 56 78/127 61 5/783 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60 % 70% 80% 90% 100% pre-modified uses of claim unqualified uses of claim to -ing all instances