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On the role of frequency in the grammatical constructionalization of the passive
construction
Peter PetréKU Leuven / FWO
Leuven – 14 July 2014
INTRODUCTION
Diachronic construction grammar
• Historical linguistics construction grammar• Construction– non-compositional form + meaning– may be compositional if sufficiently frequent
(Goldberg 2006)
Grammaticalization
• Grammaticalization in a cxn framework (Traugott & Trousdale 2013)
• Grammatical constructionalization– form change +– meaning change
• Only form or meaning – = constructional change – ≠ a new construction
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.”
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
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?
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)
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])
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)?
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)
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 ...])
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.
RESEARCH QUESTION
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.
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.
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?
METHODOLOGY
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
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
ANALYSIS
Paradigmatization
1051-1150
(n=52)
1151-1250
(n=117)
1251-1350 (n=47
1351-1420
(n=248)
1421-1500
(n=212)
1501-1570
(n=216)
1571-1640
(n=233)
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
byofthroughfrom
By ~ animacy of the agent
• Prepositional functions relate to their object?• Perhaps, but no clear relation with passive
from through of by0%
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
15
22 5754
2
17 3254
InanimateAnimate
By ~ animacy of the subject
• By also correlates with inanimate subjects!
from through of by0%
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
1221
5645
518
3362
InanimateAnimate
Consistent behaviour
from through of by0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
11
15 4
0
4
14 4
0
1051-1150
InanimateAnimate
from through of by0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1 4 14
2
1 3 12
10
1251-1350
InanimateAnimate
from of through by0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
28 2
15
0
11 1
24
1351-1420
InanimateAnimate
from of through by0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
10
0
28
0
6
0
28
1501-1570
InanimateAnimate
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)
CONCLUSION
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
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
Road work ahead
• Analyse more data• Look into with, mid, at & for
REFERENCES
ReferencesBybee, 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.
