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On the role of frequency in the grammatical constructionalization of the passive construction

On the role of frequency in the grammatical constructionalization of the passive construction. Peter Petré KU Leuven / FWO Leuven – 14 July 2014. introduction. Diachronic construction grammar. Historical linguistics construction grammar Construction non-compositional form + meaning

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On the role of frequency in the grammatical constructionalization of the passive construction

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  1. On the role of frequency in the grammatical constructionalization of the passive construction Peter Petré KU Leuven / FWO Leuven – 14 July 2014

  2. introduction

  3. Diachronic construction grammar • Historical linguistics construction grammar • Construction • non-compositional form + meaning • may be compositional if sufficiently frequent (Goldberg 2006)

  4. Grammaticalization • Grammaticalization in a cxn framework (Traugott & Trousdale 2013) • Grammatical constructionalization • form change + • meaning change • Only form or meaning • = constructional change • ≠ a new construction

  5. Frequency? • Where does frequency come in? • Some have used frequency to demonstrate functional change (e.g. Hilpert 2013) • What about its relation to form change? • Traugott & Trousdale 2013 “frequency is not considered as a factor since ‘sufficient frequency’ is not operationalizable” “Bybee (2003) treats frequency as a mechanism. In our view it is not a mechanism, but an epiphenomenon of routinization and schematization, etc.”

  6. The passive construction • Instance of grammatical constructionalization • Copular construction with adjectival participle • They are married and happy. • ≠ Someone married and *happied them. • Resultative in-between category (Toyota 2008) • At first her anchor was broken through the force of the gale. • The force of the gale = cause ≠ personal agent • Diathetic alternative of the active • The house was (being) ransacked by gang-members • = Gang-members ransacked/were ransacking the house

  7. Topic · Long passives • Long passives over 1051-1640 • Prepositions: from, through, of, by • By develops into the preposition of passives • How does by’s combinatorial potential relate to the grammaticalization of the passive more generally?

  8. Original backgrounding function • Form • Predicative adjective • No grammaticalized preposition of the agent • Function • Backgrounding of the agent (1) Þara geleafan & gehwyrfednesse is sægd þæt se cyning swa wære efnblissende. ‘In their faith and conversion (it) is said that the king was equally rejoicing.’ (c925(a900), Bede)

  9. Form change • Evidence was mostly of a qualitative nature • Loss of adjectival endings on participles • Reduction of auxiliary choice (wesan/weorðan) to only one (Petré 2014) • Prepositional passive (2) He was highly thought of (?13th ct. [Denison 1985]) (3)*He is afraid of (if someone is afraid of him) • Recipient passive (4) She was given a book. (?14th ct. [Allen 1995])

  10. Function change? • The appearance of PP & IO passives is explained as a signal of the new topicalizing function of the passive (Seoane 2006, Los 2009) • What is topicalization? How does topicalization (of patient) differ from backgrounding (of agent)?

  11. Initial situation • Preverbal elements were topical-given (Los 2012) • Subjects of ‘pre-passive’ were ‘naturally’ topical (5) He fought for hours. Then was he killed by Sigefrid. • Subject is typically kept constant (e.g. protagonist) • Is known & needs not appear initially • Various elements allowed in preverbal position (6) Since then thought man/people highly of Sigefrid & him gave man many gifts. • Local anchors (then) • Empty man in active constructions • Non-nominative topic (him gave man)

  12. New situation • Replacement of V2 by SV • Only the subject can occupy unmarked topic slot • Alternatives (þa ‘then’, man) decline • Subject has to do the work and set a contentful topic & link to preceding discourse • Range of subjects increases • more inanimates • members of less prototypically transitive situations (7) I have listed a book on Amazon called JFK: Absolute Proof. The book is selling on Amazon for over $200.00. [~ I’m selling the book ...])

  13. New types of passive • Range of subjects increases ~ new passives (8)He fought for hours until he was killed by Sigefrid/Sigefrid killed him. Since then Sigefrid is highly thought of& he was given many gifts. (9) There was another hospital of S. John yn the town ... This hospitale was foundid by Hughe, bisshop (1501-1570) (9’)*This hospitale founded Hugh, bisshop.

  14. Research question

  15. Frequency · effect or factor? • General increase in inanimate subjects (Toyota 2008:161) • According to Traugott & Trousdale (2013) the increase of inanimate subjects would be a mere effect of the routinization of the new topicalizing function.

  16. Long passives & inanimacy • Seoane (2010) shows that long passives with by predominantly select inanimate subjects in Early Modern English. • History of long passives may learn us something about what happened to the passive.

  17. Paradigmatization pathway • Preposition of the agent = paradigmatization • Pre-grammaticalization • of, from, through, with, mid, at, for, by • Post-grammaticalization • by (of, with) • What does the selection of by tell us about • the functional change of the passive? • the role of frequency in this change?

  18. methodology

  19. LEON 0.3 • Meta-corpus covering Old English-1640 • Existing corpora (YCOE, PPCME2, HC, LAEME 2.1,MEG-C) • New transcriptions • 400,000 words/period • Genre-balanced • Dialect-balanced • Aimed at making cross-genre quantitative analysis across subperiods more reliable

  20. Data • Work in progress • Queried LEON for • BE & Pple & {FROM,THROUGH,OF,BY} • in any order • with max. 3 words intervening each time • Currently 253 instances analysed for various factors • 1051-1150: parsed texts in LEON, analysed exhaustively • 1251-1350: parsed + non-parsed, sample analysed • 1351-1420: parsed, sample analysed • 1501-1570: parsed, sample analysed

  21. analysis

  22. Paradigmatization

  23. By~ animacy of the agent • Prepositional functions relate to their object? • Perhaps, but no clear relation with passive

  24. By ~ animacy of the subject • By also correlates with inanimate subjects!

  25. Consistent behaviour

  26. Semantics of by • Originally • from, of = denote source • through, by = denote pathway • from, of more naturally used for highly transitive situations (where agent = cause = source of transitive event) • through, by more suitable for less prototypically transitive situations (where PP-object ≠ agent) (10) Þe siȝth is shewed hym by þe Aungel. (c1350)

  27. Conclusion

  28. Frequency, more than an effect • Change in English word order put pressure on language user to find ways of encoding the topic as a subject • This led to an increased use of e.g. inanimate subjects • Long passives with ‘less transitive’ by ‘along’ • had a higher proportion of inanimate subjects • could more easily be extended to new passives • By’s skewed frequency distribution made it the most accessible option for new passives • Frequency can be a factor influencing the grammaticalization pathway of the passive

  29. Long passives & the passive • By becomes predominant preposition around same time that ‘special’ passives become productive (ca. 1400) • Agents formerly expressed by e.g. of were more and more expressed by by • This may be called ‘formal micro-change’ (at the level of individual constructs) • This frequency fact provides independent evidence that constructional grammaticalization has taken place

  30. Road work ahead • Analyse more data • Look into with, mid, at & for

  31. References

  32. References Bybee, Joan. 2003. Mechanisms of change in grammaticization. In Brian Joseph & Richard Janda (eds.), The handbook of historical linguistics, 602-623. Oxford: Blackwell. Goldberg, Adele. 2006. Constructions at work: the nature of generalization in language. Oxford: OUP. Hilpert, Martin. 2013. Constructional Change in English: Developments in Allomorphy, Word Formation, and Syntax. Cambridge: CUP. LEON 0.3. Leuven English Old to New, version 0.3. 2013. Compiled by Peter Petré. (lirias.kuleuven.be/handle/123456789/396725). Los, Bettelou. 2009. The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English: Information structure and syntax in interaction. English Language and Linguistics 13(1). 97-125. Los, Bettelou. 2012. The loss of verb-second and the switch from bounded to unbounded systems. In Anneli Meurman-Solin et al. (eds.), Information structure and syntactic change in the history of English, 21-46. Oxford: OUP. Petré, Peter. 2014. Constructions and environments: Copular, Passive and related Constructions in Old and Middle English. Oxford: OUP. (lirias.kuleuven.be/handle/123456789/366310) Seoane, Elena. 2006. Information Structure and Word Order Change: The Passive as an Information-rearranging Strategy in the History of English. In Ans van Kemenade & Bettelou Los (eds.), Handbook of the History of English, 360–391. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Seoane, Elena. 2010. The effect of prominence hierarchies on Modern English long passives: Pragmatic vs. syntactic factors. Miscelánea. A Journal of English and American Studies 41. 93-106. Toyota, Junichi. 2008. Diachronic change in the English passive. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Traugott, Elizabeth & Graeme Trousdale. 2013. Constructionalization and Constructional Changes. Oxford: OUP.

  33. Thank you!Peter Petrépeter.petre@arts.kuleuven.be

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