Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T03:37:22.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Verbo-nominal constructions of necessity with þearf n. and need n.: competition and grammaticalization from OE to eModE1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2010

LUCÍA LOUREIRO-PORTO
LUCÍA LOUREIRO-PORTO*
Affiliation:
Departament de Filologia Espanyola, Moderna i Llatina, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Edifici Ramon Llull, Cra. Valldemossa Km. 7, 5, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The evolution of verbs expressing necessity in the history of English, such as *þurfan and need, has been studied in detail, especially their semantic competition and their grammaticalization (see Molencki 2002, 2005; Taeymans 2006; Loureiro-Porto 2009). However, analogous verbo-nominal expressions involving the morphologically related nouns þearf and need and the verbs be and have have received little attention, despite their relevance as semantic competitors of the verbs and their subsequent fossilization in high-frequency expressions such as if need be and had need. The current article fills this gap by studying the development of verbo-nominal expressions with þearf and need from Old to early Modern English, and asks: (i) whether the verbs and the verbo-nominal expressions undergo similar processes of grammaticalization, and (ii) whether there is any connection between the evolution of the verbal and the verbo-nominal sets. Analysis of these verbo-nominal constructions in a 4.1 million-word corpus (including the Helsinki Corpus and fragments of the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, the Lampeter Corpus and the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler) shows that, firstly, both idiomaticization and grammaticalization are relevant in the development of verbo-nominal constructions; secondly, their evolution is key to the understanding of the development of the necessity verbs *þurfan and need; and finally, the competition between constructions with þearf and need calls into question the well-known hypothesis that phonological confusion with durran caused the disappearance of *þurfan in the ME period (see Visser 1963–73: 1423, §1343).

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , November 2010 , pp. 373 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barber, Charles. 1997 [1976]. Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight L. 1980. Wanna and the gradience of auxiliaries. In Brettschneider, Gunter & Lehmann, Christian (eds.), Wege zur Universalienforschung: sprachwissenschaftliche Beiträge zum 60. Geburtstag von Hansjakob Seiler, 292–9. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Bosworth, Joseph & Toller, T. Northcote. 1898. An Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Supplement by Toller, T. Northcote 1921. Enlarged addenda and corrigenda by Alistair Campbell 1972. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel & Traugott, Elizabeth C.. 2005. Lexicalization and grammaticalization in language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Peter. 2009. Modals and quasi-modals in English. Amsterdam: Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. 2002. Typology and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Denison, David & Cort, Alison. 2010. Better as a verb. In Davidse, Kristin & Vandelanotte, Lieven (eds.), Subjectification, intersubjectification and grammaticalization (Topics in English Linguistics), 219–54. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Healey, diPaolo, Antonette, Joan Holland, McDougall, Ian & Mielke, Peter. 2000. The Dictionary of Old English Corpus, TEI-P3 conformant version. Toronto: DOE project on CD-Rom.Google Scholar
Facchinetti, Roberta, Krug, Manfred & Palmer, Frank Robert (eds.). 2003. Modality in contemporary English. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Görlach, Manfred. 1991. Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1993. Auxiliaries: Cognitive forces and grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2002. World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticalization. In Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Heine, Bernd (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization, vol. 1, 17–35. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Traugott, Elizabeth C.. 2003. Grammaticalization, 2nd edn.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney. 1980. Criteria for auxiliaries and modals. In Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan (eds.), Studies in English linguistics for Randolph Quirk, 65–78. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1927. A modern English grammar on historical principles, part III, vol. 2. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Krug, Manfred G. 2000. Emerging English modals: A corpus-based study of grammaticalization (Topics in English Linguistics 32). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1999. Grammar and conceptualization (Cognitive Linguistics Research 14). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 2003. The English modal auxiliaries 1961–1992. In Facchinetti, Krug & Palmer (eds.), 223–40.Google Scholar
Loureiro-Porto, Lucía. 2008. The convergence of two need verbs in Middle English. In Dury, Richard, Gotti, Maurizio & Dossena, Marina (eds.), English historical linguistics 2006, vol. II: Lexical and semantic change, 97–116. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loureiro-Porto, Lucía. 2009. The semantic predecessors of need in the history of English (c750–1710) (Publications of the Philological Society 43). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mair, Christian & Leech, Geoffrey. 2006. Current changes in syntax. In Aarts, Bas & McMahon, April (eds.), Handbook of English linguistics, 318–42. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Middle English Compendium, http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/mec (January 2004).Google Scholar
Mitchell, Keith. 2003. Had better and might as well: On the margins of modality? In Facchinetti, Krug & Palmer (eds.), 129–50.Google Scholar
Molencki, Rafal. 2002. The status of dearr and þearf in Old English. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 38, 363–80.Google Scholar
Molencki, Rafal. 2005. The confusion between thurven and durren in Middle English. In Ritt, Nikolaus & Schendl, Herbert (eds.), Rethinking Middle English: Linguistic and literary approaches, 147–60. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Müller, Friederike. 2008. From degrammaticalization to regrammaticalization: Current changes in the use of NEED. Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 33 (1), 71–94.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu & Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena (compilers). 1999. Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler. Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Nokkonen, Soili. 2006. The semantic variation of NEED TO in four recent British English corpora. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11 (1), 29–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nordlinger, Rachel & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1997. Scope and the development of epistemic modality: evidence from ought to. English Language and Linguistics 1, 295–317.Google Scholar
Nykiel, Jerzy. 2002. Crossing the border between the modal and the lexical: The developmental paths of two English verbs: dare and need. MA thesis. University of Silesia.Google Scholar
Oxford English dictionary, 2nd edn. on CD-ROM Version 3.1.1. 1989. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Perkins, Michael R. 1983. Modal expressions in English. London: Francis Pinter.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rissanen, Matti. 1999. Syntax. In Lass, Roger (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. III 1476–1776, 187–331. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rissanen, Matti, Ihalainen, Ossi & Kytö, Merja (compilers). 1991. Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Diachronic and dialectal. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Schmied, Josef (compiler). 1999. Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts. Chemnitz: University of Technology.Google Scholar
Smith, Nicholas. 2003. Changes in the modals and semi-modals of strong obligation and epistemic necessity in recent British English. In Facchinetti, Krug & Palmer (eds.), 241–66.Google Scholar
Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taeymans, Martine. 2006. An investigation into the emergence and development of the verb need from Old to Present-Day English: A corpus-based approach. PhD dissertation, Universiteit Antwerpen.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics, vol. I: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1989. On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language 65, 31–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1992. Syntax. In Hogg, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. I: The origins to 1066, 168–289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Dasher, Richard B.. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan & Plungian, Vladimir A.. 1998. Modality's semantic map. Linguistic Typology 2, 79–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visser, Fredericus T. 1963–73. An historical syntax of the English language, 4 vols. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Warner, Anthony R. 1993. English auxiliaries: Structure and history (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 66). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar