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.

Thank you!

Peter Petrépeter.petre@arts.kuleuven.be