Kikusawa, Namiko (2017) The subjunctive mood in Late Middle English adverbial clauses

253 Pages·2017·2.67 MB·English

by  Namiko Kikusawa

Kikusawa, Namiko (2017) The subjunctive mood in Late Middle English
adverbial clauses: the interaction of form and function. PhD thesis.

http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7887/

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Glasgow Theses Service
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/
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The subjunctive mood in Late Middle English
adverbial clauses: the interaction of form and function

Namiko Kikusawa

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in English Language

English Language
School of Critical Studies
College of Arts
University of Glasgow

January 2017
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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the history of the inflexional subjunctive and its functional substitutes
in Late Middle English. To explore why and how the inflexional subjunctive declined in the
history of English language, I analysed 2653 examples of three adverbial clauses introduced
by if (1882 examples), though (305 examples) and lest (466 examples). Using a corpus-based
approach, this thesis argues that linguistic change in subjunctive constructions did not
happen suddenly but rather gradually, and the way it changed was varied , and that different
constructions changed at different speeds in different environments.

It is well known that the inflexional subjunctive declined in the history of English, mainly
because of inflexional loss. Strangely however this topic has been comparatively neglected
in the scholarly literature, especially with regard to the Middle English period, probably due
to the limitations of data and also because study of this development requires very
cumbersome textual research.

This thesis has derived and analysed the data from three large corpora in the public domain:
the Middle English Grammar Corpus (MEG-C for short), the Innsbruck Computer Archive
of Machine-Readable English Texts (ICAMET for short), and some selected texts from The
Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, part of the Middle English Compendium that
also includes the Middle English Dictionary. The data were analysed from three
perspectives: 1) clausal type, 2) dialect, and 3) textual genre.

The basic methodology for the research was to analyse the examples one by one, with special
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attention being paid to the peculiarities of each text. In addition, this thesis draw on some
complementary – indeed overlapping -- linguistic theories for further discussion: 1) Biber’s
multi-dimensional theory, 2) Ogura and Wang’s (1994) S-curve or ‘diffusion’ theory, 3)
Kretzchmar’s (2009) linguistics of speech, and 4) Halliday’s (1987) notion of language as a
dynamic open system.

To summarise the outcomes of this thesis:
1) On variation between clausal types, it was shown that the distributional tendencies of verb
types (sub, ind, mod) are different between the three adverbial clauses under consideration.
2) On variation between dialects, it has been shown that the northern area, i.e. the so-called
Great Scandinavian Belt, displays an especially high comparative ratio of the inflexional
subjunctive construction compared to the other areas. This thesis suggests that this result
was caused by the influence of Norse, relating the finding to the argument of Samuels
(1989) that the present tense -es ending in the northern dialect was introduced by the
influence of the Scandinavians.
3) On variation between genres, those labelled Science, Documents and Religion display
relatively high ratio of the inflexional subjunctive, while Letter, Romance and History
show relatively low ratio of the inflexional subjunctive. This results are explained by
Biber’s multi-dimensional theory, which shows that the inflexional subjunctive can be
related to the factors ‘informational’, ‘non-narrative’, ‘persuasive’ and ‘abstract’.
4) Lastly, on the inflexional subjunctive in Late Middle English, this thesis concludes that 1)
the change did not happen suddenly but gradually, and 2) the way language changes varies.
Thus the inflexional subjunctive did not disappear suddenly from England, and there was
a time lag among the clausal types, dialects and genres, which can be related to Ogura and
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Wang’s S-curve (“diffusion”) theory and Kretzchmars’s view of “linguistic continuum”.

This thesis has shown that the issues with regard to the inflexional subjunctive are quite
complex, so that research in this area requires not only textual analysis but also theoretical
analysis, considering both intra- and extra- linguistic factors.
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Table of contents

Abstract ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2
Table of contents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5
List of tables ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
List of figures ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13
Acknowledgements ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14
List of abbreviations --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16

Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Research questions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22
1.1.1 The subjunctive in Late Middle English ---------------------------------------- 22
1.1.2 Why are they worth addressing? ------------------------------------------------- 23
1.1.3 What are the projected outcomes of this study? ------------------------------- 24
1.2 The history of the subjunctive -------------------------------------------------------- 25
1.2.1 Indo-European languages --------------------------------------------------------- 25
1.2.2 Old English ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26
1.2.3 Middle English --------------------------------------------------------------------- 29
a) The subjunctive in principal clauses -------------------------------------------- 30
b) The subjunctive in subordinate clauses ---------------------------------------- 31
1.2.4 Modern English -------------------------------------------------------------------- 35
1.2.5 Present-Day English --------------------------------------------------------------- 37
1.3 Previous studies -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38
1.3.1 The change(s) that corpus-based study has brought about ------------------- 38
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1.3.2 Variation between dialects -------------------------------------------------------- 39
a) LALME --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39
b) Ogura (1990): Dynamic Dialectology----------------------------------------- 41
c) Previous studies ----------------------------------------------------------------- 42
1.3.3 Variation between genres --------------------------------------------------------- 43
a) Biber (1988) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 43
b) Previous studies ------------------------------------------------------------------ 45
1.3.4 Other studies on the English subjunctive --------------------------------------- 46
a) Chronological studies ----------------------------------------------------------- 46
b) Early Modern English ---------------------------------------------------------- 48
c) Comparing different periods of English -------------------------------------- 49
d) Present-Day English ------------------------------------------------------------ 50
1.3.5 What is missing in the literature? ----------------------------------------------- 51
1.4 Theoretical contextualisation --------------------------------------------------------- 52
1.4.1 Lexical diffusion – Ogura and Wang (1994) ----------------------------------- 52
1.4.2 Linguistics of speech – Kretzschmar (2009) ----------------------------------- 54
1.4.3 Prototype theory – Taylor (2003) ------------------------------------------------ 55
1.4.4 Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 56
1.5 Term definitions ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57
1.5.1 Subjunctive ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57
1.5.2 Modal auxiliaries ------------------------------------------------------------------- 62
1.6 The structure of this thesis ------------------------------------------------------------ 68

Chapter 2: Data collection and methodology
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2.1 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 71
2.2 Corpora examined in this thesis ------------------------------------------------------ 72
2.2.1 MEG-C ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 72
2.2.2 ICAMET ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 74
2.2.3 Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse ------------------------------------ 75
2.3 Data collection --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 76
2.4 Sorting the data ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 77
2.4.1 The process of classification ----------------------------------------------------- 77
2.4.2 Classification (case studies) ----------------------------------------------------- 80
2.3.4 Statistical methodology ----------------------------------------------------------- 81
2.5 Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 82

Chapter 3: Data analysis
If-clauses --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 85
Though-clauses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 139
Lest-clauses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 148

Chapter 4: Overall data and variation across clausal types
4.1 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 162
4.2 Overall data ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 162
4.3 If-clauses ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 163
4.3.1 The history of adverbial if-clauses ----------------------------------------------- 163
4.3.2 The data ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 166
4.3.3 The type of modals ---------------------------------------------------------------- 167
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4.4 Though-clauses --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 169
4.4.1 The history of adverbial though-clauses ---------------------------------------- 169
4.4.2 The data ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 171
4.4.3 The type of modals ---------------------------------------------------------------- 172
4.5 Lest-clauses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 173
4.5.1 The history of adverbial lest-clauses -------------------------------------------- 173
4.5.2 The data ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 174
4.5.3 The type of modals ----------------------------------------------------------------- 176
4.6 Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 177

Chapter 5: Variation between dialects
5.1 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 178
5.2 Scandinavian influence ---------------------------------------------------------------- 179
5.3 If-clauses ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 181
5.3.1 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 181
5.3.2 North (Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire,
Cumberland, Northumberland and Durham) -------------------------------- 185
5.3.3 West (Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire) ----------------- 188
5.3.4 Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire
and Leicestershire ---------------------------------------------------------------- 189
5.3.5 East (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire) --------- 192
5.3.6 Southeast (Kent) ------------------------------------------------------------------- 194
5.3.7 Southwest (Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Cornwall) ----------------- 195
5.4 Though-clauses --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 196
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5.4.1 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 196
5.4.2 Shropshire --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 199
5.4.3 Staffordshire ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 199
5.4.4 Norfolk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 200
5.4.5 Yorkshire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 200
5.4.6 Gloucestershire --------------------------------------------------------------------- 201
5.5 Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 202

Chapter 6: Variation between genres
6.1 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 203
6.2 Overall result ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 206
6.3 Education ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 208
6.4 Science ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 209
6.4.1 Studies on medical and scientific texts in Middle English --------------------- 209
6.4.2 Science -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 210
6.5 Document --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 211
6.6 Religion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 212
6.7 Romance ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 214
6.8 Letter --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 215
6.9 History ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 216
6.10 Summary -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 217

Chapter 7: Descriptive model: historical insight and ‘dynamic
open system’