Old English wolde and sceolde
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Ilse Wischer
Abstract
The Old English (OE) pre-modals willan and *sculan are generally considered less grammaticalized than their Modern English counterparts will and shall; nevertheless they most often function as auxiliary verbs (cf. Wischer, 2006: 173). Their present tense forms have already been studied in considerable detail, often in the context of their development into future tense markers, while their morphologically past tense forms have received comparatively little attention. In this paper I examine the past forms of willan and *sculan in the poetry texts from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus and categorize them according to their syntactic contexts and the lexical or grammatical meanings they express. Thus, the aim of this paper is to shed light on their past and non-past time-reference, their main verb use versus auxiliary use and the type of modality or other function they can express in periphrastic constructions, and hence their degree of grammaticalization in Old English.
Abstract
The Old English (OE) pre-modals willan and *sculan are generally considered less grammaticalized than their Modern English counterparts will and shall; nevertheless they most often function as auxiliary verbs (cf. Wischer, 2006: 173). Their present tense forms have already been studied in considerable detail, often in the context of their development into future tense markers, while their morphologically past tense forms have received comparatively little attention. In this paper I examine the past forms of willan and *sculan in the poetry texts from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus and categorize them according to their syntactic contexts and the lexical or grammatical meanings they express. Thus, the aim of this paper is to shed light on their past and non-past time-reference, their main verb use versus auxiliary use and the type of modality or other function they can express in periphrastic constructions, and hence their degree of grammaticalization in Old English.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
