Abstract
Present-Day English has an unusually high number of labile verbs, such as melt or burn, both cross-linguistically and with respect to genetically related languages. Comparison among early Germanic languages has allowed researchers to detect an incipient favouring of labile coding already in Old English, where it is more frequent than in any other language of this group (Hermodsson 1952) and replaces causative coding in a considerable proportion of former causative verb pairs (van Gelderen 2011; García García 2020). This article attempts to map the chronological and textual distribution of labile verbs between the seventh and the eleventh centuries CE in order to explore how lability develops throughout the Old English period. Old English labile verbs coming from Germanic causative oppositions are the sample on which we base our study. The choice ensures that the verbs in question were originally not labile and underwent a process of labilization in (pre-)Old English. Some of the questions addressed in the study are: Can a tendency towards labilization in Old English be confirmed by internal evidence, as it arguably can by external comparison with other Germanic languages? Can an increase in lability be detected in English before French influence was effective? Does it show any restrictions by genre or individual text?
Works Cited
Bammesberger, Alfred. 1965. “Deverbative jan-Verba des Altenglischen, vergleichend mit den übrigen altgermanischen Sprachen dargestellt”. Unpubl. PhD dissertation, University of Munich.Search in Google Scholar
Bosworth-Toller = Bosworth, Joseph and Thomas N. Toller (eds.). 1898. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Thomas N. Toller (ed.). 1921. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Online version: <https://bosworthtoller.com/> [last accessed 19 March 2021].Search in Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 1988. The Development of English Aspectual Systems: Aspectualizers and Post-Verbal Particles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. and Elizabeth C. Traugott. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511615962Search in Google Scholar
Brunner, Karl. 1965. Altenglische Grammatik: Nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers. Tübingen: Niemeyer.10.1515/9783110930894Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, A. 1959. Old English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Search in Google Scholar
Cichosz, Anna. 2010. The Influence of Text Type on Word Order of Old Germanic Languages: A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study of Old English and Old High German. New York: Lang. Search in Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 2000. “A Typology of Causatives: Form, Syntax and Meaning”. In: R. M. W. Dixon and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds.). Changing Valency: Case Studies in Transitivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 30–83. 10.1017/CBO9780511627750Search in Google Scholar
DOE = Dictionary of Old English in Electronic Form, A–I. 2018. Ed. Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. Toronto: University of Toronto. <http://www.doe.utoronto.ca> [last accessed 19 March 2021].Search in Google Scholar
DOEC = Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus. 2009. Ed. Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. Toronto: University of Toronto. <http://www.doe.utoronto.ca/pages/pub/web-corpus.html> [last accessed 19 March 2021].Search in Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas and David Wilkins. 2000. “In the Mind’s Ear: The Semantic Extensions of Perception Verbs in Australian Languages”. Language 76: 546–592.10.2307/417135Search in Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert and Christopher M. Cain. 2003. A History of Old English Literature. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
García García, Luisa. 2005. Germanische Kausativbildung: Die deverbalen jan‑Verben im Gotischen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Search in Google Scholar
García García, Luisa. 2012. “Morphological Causatives in Old English: The Quest for a Vanishing Formation”. Transactions of the Philological Society 110: 122–148.10.1111/j.1467-968X.2012.01287.xSearch in Google Scholar
García García, Luisa. 2020. “The Basic Valency Orientation of Old English and the Causative ja‑formation: A Synchronic and Diachronic Approach”. English Language and Linguistics 24: 153–177. 10.1017/S1360674318000345Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. “More on the Typology of Inchoative/Causative Verb Alternations”. In: Bernard Comrie and Maria Polinsky (eds.). Causatives and Transitivity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins. 87–120.10.1075/slcs.23.05hasSearch in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2016. “Universals of Causative and Anticausative Verb Formation and the Spontaneity Scale”. Lingua Posnaniensis 58: 33–63.10.1515/linpo-2016-0009Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin, Andreea Calude, Michael Spagnol, Heiko Narrog and Elif Bamyaci. 2014. “Coding Causal-Noncausal Verb Alternations: A Form-Frequency Correspondence Explanation”. Journal of Linguistics 50: 587–625.10.1017/S0022226714000255Search in Google Scholar
Helsiniki Corpus = Rissanen, Matti et al. (eds.). 1991. The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. <http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/HelsinkiCorpus/> [last accessed 19 March 2021].Search in Google Scholar
Hermodsson, Lars. 1952. “Reflexive und intransitive Verba im älteren Westgermanischen”. Unpubl. PhD dissertation, University of Uppsala.Search in Google Scholar
Hogg, Richard. 1992. “Phonology and Morphology”. In: Richard Hogg (ed.). The Cambridge History of the English Language. Volume 1: The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 67–167. 10.1017/CHOL9780521264747Search in Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth C. Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139165525Search in Google Scholar
Ingham, Richard. 2020. “How Contact with French Drove Patient-Lability in English”. Transactions of the Philological Society 118: 447–467. 10.1111/1467-968X.12199Search in Google Scholar
Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lindemann, Richard J. W. 1970. Old English Preverbal Ge‑: Its Meaning. Charlottesville, VI: University Press of Virginia.Search in Google Scholar
Martín Arista, Javier. 2012. “The Old English Prefix ge‑: A Panchronic Reappraisal”. Australian Journal of Linguistics 32: 411–433.10.1080/07268602.2012.744264Search in Google Scholar
McFadden, Thomas. 2015. “Preverbal ge‑ in Old and Middle English”. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 58: 15–48.10.21248/zaspil.58.2015.427Search in Google Scholar
McMillion, Alan. 2006. “Labile Verbs in English: Their Meaning, Behaviour and Structure”. Unpubl. PhD dissertation, Stockholm University.Search in Google Scholar
MED = Middle English Dictionary. 1952–2001. Ed. Hans Kurath, Sherman M. Kuhn, John Reidy and Robert E. Lewis. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. <http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/> [last accessed 19 March 2021].Search in Google Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard and Rafael Pascual. 2019. “Old Norse Influence on the Language of Beowulf: A Reassessment”. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 31: 298–322.10.1017/S1470542718000144Search in Google Scholar
Nerthus = NerthusV3. Online Lexical Database of Old English. 2016. Ed. Javier Martín Arista, Laura García Fernández, Miguel Lacalle Palacios, Ana Elvira Ojanguren López and Esaúl Ruiz Narbona. Nerthus Project. University of La Rioja. <www.nerthusproject.com> [last accessed 19 March 2021].Search in Google Scholar
Nichols, Johanna, David Peterson and Jonathan Barnes. 2004. “Transitivising and Detransitivising Languages”. Linguistic Typology 8: 149–211.10.1515/lity.2004.005Search in Google Scholar
Ottósson, Kjartan. 2013. “The Anticausative and Related Categories in the Old Germanic Languages”. In: Folke Josephson and Ingmar Söhrman (eds.). Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Verbs. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins. 329–382.10.1075/slcs.134.12ottSearch in Google Scholar
Perlmutter, D. M. 1978. “Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis”. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 4: 157–189.10.3765/bls.v4i0.2198Search in Google Scholar
Plank, Frans and Aditi Lahiri. 2015. “Macroscopic and Microscopic Typology: Basic Valence Orientation, more Pertinacious than Meets the Naked Eye”. Linguistic Typology 19: 1–54. 10.1515/lingty-2015-0001Search in Google Scholar
Poppe, Erich. 2009. “Standard Average European and the Celticity of English Intensifiers and Reflexives: Some Considerations and Implications”. English Language and Linguistics 13: 251–266.10.1017/S1360674309003013Search in Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph and Charles L. Wrenn. 1957. Old English Grammar. 2nd ed. London/New York: Routledge. Search in Google Scholar
Riecke, Jörg. 1996. Die schwachen jan-Verben des Althochdeutschen: Ein Gliederungsversuch. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 10.13109/9783666203473Search in Google Scholar
Ruiz Narbona, Esaúl. 2018. “Transitivising Formations in Competition?: Lability and the Effects of Preverbs on Old English Causative Oppositions”. Unpubl. PhD dissertation, University of La Rioja. Search in Google Scholar
Seebold, Elmar. 1970. Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen starken Verben. Den Haag/Paris: Mouton.10.1515/9783110821956Search in Google Scholar
Stanley, Eric G. 1952–1953. “The Chronology of r-Metathesis in Old English”. English and Germanic Studies 5: 103–115. Search in Google Scholar
Streitberg, Wilhelm. 1891. “Perfective und imperfective Actionsart im Germanischen”. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 15: 70–177.10.1515/bgsl.1891.1891.15.70Search in Google Scholar
van Gelderen, Elly 2011. “Valency Changes in the History of English”. Journal of Historical Linguistics 1: 106–143.10.1075/jhl.1.1.05vanSearch in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
