“Subsumed under the dative”?
-
Kirsten Middeke
Abstract
Most descriptions of Old English grammar do not count the instrumental as a separate case, since distinctly instrumental forms are not available for all lexical categories that are inflected for case in Old English. Assuming that the instrumental has been completely subsumed under the dative is misleading, however. In actual fact, any definite, quantified or adjective-modified masculine or neuter NP in the singular can be marked either dative or instrumental, and a clear functional difference emerges if we contrast noun phrases containing instrumental forms with those containing exclusively dative forms. Instrumental-case NPs are adverbials of time, manner and place, whereas dative-case NPs usually refer to persons and are often verbal arguments. This paper explores the extent to which the instrumental and the dative can be distinguished in Old English, the functional load of the distinction and the degree of its productivity, drawing on the results of collexeme analyses carried out on data from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose.
Abstract
Most descriptions of Old English grammar do not count the instrumental as a separate case, since distinctly instrumental forms are not available for all lexical categories that are inflected for case in Old English. Assuming that the instrumental has been completely subsumed under the dative is misleading, however. In actual fact, any definite, quantified or adjective-modified masculine or neuter NP in the singular can be marked either dative or instrumental, and a clear functional difference emerges if we contrast noun phrases containing instrumental forms with those containing exclusively dative forms. Instrumental-case NPs are adverbials of time, manner and place, whereas dative-case NPs usually refer to persons and are often verbal arguments. This paper explores the extent to which the instrumental and the dative can be distinguished in Old English, the functional load of the distinction and the degree of its productivity, drawing on the results of collexeme analyses carried out on data from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The dynamics of changes in the early English inflection 9
- “Subsumed under the dative”? 35
- ‘Thone vpon thother’ 57
- Leveraging grammaticalization 77
- Old English wolde and sceolde 111
- A corpus-based study on the development of dare in Middle English and Early Modern English 129
- Counterfactuality and aktionsart 149
- Conservatism or the influence of the semantics of motion situation in the choice of perfect auxiliaries in Jane Austen’s letters and novels 175
- Signs of grammaticalization 199
- From time-before-place to place-before-time in the history of English 223
- Variation and change at the interface of syntax and semantics 247
- Further explorations in the grammar of intensifier marking in Modern English 269
- The rivalry between far from being + predicative item and its counterpart omitting the copula in Modern English 287
- Index 309
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The dynamics of changes in the early English inflection 9
- “Subsumed under the dative”? 35
- ‘Thone vpon thother’ 57
- Leveraging grammaticalization 77
- Old English wolde and sceolde 111
- A corpus-based study on the development of dare in Middle English and Early Modern English 129
- Counterfactuality and aktionsart 149
- Conservatism or the influence of the semantics of motion situation in the choice of perfect auxiliaries in Jane Austen’s letters and novels 175
- Signs of grammaticalization 199
- From time-before-place to place-before-time in the history of English 223
- Variation and change at the interface of syntax and semantics 247
- Further explorations in the grammar of intensifier marking in Modern English 269
- The rivalry between far from being + predicative item and its counterpart omitting the copula in Modern English 287
- Index 309
