Sommerer Lotte. Article Emergence in Old English: A Constructionalist Perspective

Walter de Gruyter, 2018. — 378 p. — (Topics in English Linguistics 99). — ISBN 3110539373, 9783110539370.This book investigates nominal determination in Old English and the emergence of the definite and the indefinite article. Analyzing Old English prose texts, it discusses the nature of linguistic categorization and argues that a usage-based, cognitive, constructionalist approach best explains when, how and why the article category developed. It is shown that the development of the OE demonstrative 'se' (that) and the OE numeral 'an' (one) should not be told as a story of two individual, grammaticalizing morphemes, but must be reconceptualized in constructional terms. The emergence of the morphological category 'article' follows from constructional changes in the linguistic networks of OE speakers and especially from 'grammatical constructionalization' (i.e. the emergence of a new, schematic, mostly procedural form-meaning pairing which previously did not exist in the constructicon). Next to other functional-cognitive reasons, the book especially highlights analogy and frequency effects as driving forces of linguistic change.The phenomenon
Data and methodology
The approach
Goals and limitations
Outline of the book
Nominal determination and the articles in Present Day English
Noun phrase structure
Headedness: nouns as prototypical NP heads
The determiner position in functional ‘slot’ models
Halliday’s ‘experiential structure’ and Langacker’s notion of ‘grounding’ and ‘type specification’
Referentiality and specificity
Article usage in Modern English
The semantics of (in)definiteness
The definite article
The indefinite article
Occurrence restrictions with nouns
Frequency distribution
Demarcation criteria for articlehood
Criterion 1: No Independence
Criterion 2: No Predication
Criterion 3: No Co-occurrence
Criterion 4: Relative Position
Criterion 5: Obligatoriness
Criterion 6: Exclusiveness
Criterion 7: Syntactic Motivation Only
Concluding remarks: primary and secondary criteriax | Contents
Article emergence in Old English
Demonstrative se and numeral ān as source grams
Investigating the usage of se in Old English
Independent usage of se
Dependent usage of se
Investigating the usage of ān in Old English
Independent usage of ān
Dependent usage of ān
No marking of indefiniteness in Old English
Established views on the development of the English articles
Traditional philological views on article development
German dissertations
The article as a necessity
Loss of inflectional morphology: disappearance of gender and case as a reason for article emergence
Weak and strong adjectives
A language contact scenario
Functionalist views: article development as a grammaticalization
phenomenon
Grammaticalization: definitions and parameters
Down the cline: article emergence as a classic case of grammaticalization
Reconsidering the functionalist proposals
Formalist generative views: DP emergence and categorical reanalysis
X-bar structure and functional categories
DP-analysis as a model for nominal determination
Article development: from Spec to Head
Reconsidering the generative model
Concluding remarks: in search for synthesis
Diachronic Construction Grammar
Cognitive Construction Grammar
The Construction: form function mapping
Classifications and definitions
Entrenchment, schematization and compositionality
The Constructicon: network structure and inheritance
Inheritance
Relational and horizontal links
A usage-based constructional approach to language change
The role of frequency
Constructional change and constructionalization
Reconceptualizing grammaticalization as constructionalization
The status of reanalysis and analogy in Diachronic Construction
Grammar
Fuzzy Grammar: gradience and gradualness
Concluding remarks: the constructional contribution
Nominal determination in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Manuscript information
The Parker Chronicle
The Peterborough Chronicle
Basic determination patterns
Se as the most frequent determinative
Se in NPs with adjectival modification
Diachronic development of se: the rise of the demonstrative
Significant increase of the demonstrative se
The ‘compound’ demonstrative þes
Type increase vs. token increase
Investigating the functions and frequency of ān
Demarcating a category: application of criteria
Criterion 1: No Independence
Criterion 2: No Predication
Criterion 3: No Co-occurrence
Criterion 4: Relative Position
Criterion 5: Obligatoriness
Bare CNPs in the Peterborough Chronicle
Sun, moon, heaven, hell…unique common nouns in the Peterborough Chronicle
Criterion 6: Exclusiveness
Criterion 7: Syntactic Motivation Only
Concluding remarks: evaluating the criteria for articlehood
Nominal determination in Old English prose
Basic determination patterns
Testing the variables ‘historical period’ and ‘text type’
Criterion 3: No Co-occurrence
The influence of Latin on the co-occurrence of determinatives in Orosius
Testing the variables ‘historical period’ and ‘text type’
Criterion 4: Relative Position
Criterion 5: Obligatoriness
Bare common nouns in OE prose texts
Unique common nouns in OE prose texts
Concluding remarks: category and slot emergence in o.2
Article emergence: a constructional scenario
Constructionalization of a schematic definite NP construction with a determination slot
Emerging network structure shaped by frequency effects and analogical thinking
The cognitive cycle of constructionalization
Neoanalysis due to accommodation pressures and systemic simplification
Recruitment of se as a default filler
Constructionalization of indefinite NP construction and recruitment of ān
‘Later’ developments: recruitment of some as indefinite plural article and extension of determiner class
Additional factors influencing the development of the articles
Syntactic heaviness
Processing efficiency and performance economy
Concluding remarks: changing strategies for (in)definiteness marking in the history of EnglishReconceptualizing grammaticalization as grammatical constructionalization
Constructionalization as a system-driven change triggered by complex analogy and frequency effects
The cognitive cycle of constructionalization
Overt definiteness marking as a means to increase
efficiency
Emergence of determination slot and the definite article between o.and o.3
Limitations, implications and directions for future research
Appendix: manuscript and corpus information
Ǣlfric’s Lives of Saints and Catholic Homilies
Blickling Homilies
Laws
Gregory’s Dialogues
Bede’s Historia ecclesiastia gentis Anglorum
Alfred’s rendering of Boethius’ De consolatione
Philosophiae
Alfred’s translation of Gregory’s Cura pastoralis
Orosius’ Historiae adversum paganos