1 Introduction

Notes 1 Introduction 1. A note on terminology: In this study the term ‘Austria’ will be used in order to refer to the German-speaking part of the Habsburg Empire (includ- ing ‘Vorderösterreich’) in the eighteenth century. At the time the Habsburg Emperors were also ruling the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The German-speaking part of this nation may therefore be subdivided into and labelled ‘Austria’ and ‘Germany’. 2. Note that the inflectional subjunctive was taken over by the periphrastic form würde in German, which cannot be labelled a modal auxiliary verb. 3. Guchmann and Semenjuk did however notice ‘Präteritumschwund’ (loss of preterite forms) in the southern German area in the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century (see Guchmann and Semenjuk, 1981, p. 256), a development that can be observed in Austrian German in the eighteenth century (see Chapter 5). 4. ARCHER-3 = A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers 3. 1990– 1993/2002/2007. Compiled under the supervision of Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan at Northern Arizona University, University of Southern California, University of Freiburg, University of Heidelberg, University of Helsinki, Uppsala University, University of Michigan, and University of Manchester. 5. See this website for details: http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/research/ projects/germanc/ 6. Fitzmaurice, for instance, carried out investigations on the use of relative markers (2000) and modal auxiliaries and lexically explicit stance expres- sions (2003) by Joseph Addison and his social network. Social network theory was originally developed as a research tool in the social sciences from where it was adopted into socio-linguistics. In this research area, it was first deployed by Lesley Milroy in her studies on the Belfast vernaculars (see Milroy, 1987, p. 45). 7. Parts of the research described here have appeared in Auer (2006). 8. Bergmann argues that it is very difficult to prove the effectiveness of grammarians in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the language theorists orientated themselves to language usage (see Bergmann, 1982, p. 279). 9. Gustafsson’s study concentrates on the verb write only. Gustafsson found a great variety of participle forms in the epistolary usage, which she compared to the forms prescribed in grammars. She concluded that ‘the prescriptive selection of variants emerges as an attempt to find a uniform principle for the codification of fluctuating usage’ (Gustafsson, 2002b, p. 9). Although the evidence of usage testifies to the prevalence of other variants in the case of letter-writing, the participle written, which was the only suggested form by grammars in the last decades of the eighteenth century, persists. 188 Notes 189 10. An alternative explanation for this situation has been provided by Yáñez-Bouza (2006) with regard to preposition stranding. She argues that the decline of the construction before grammarians’ normative rules and comments were published can be interpreted as the effect of ideology, which was promulgated earlier and paved the way for the norms. 11. I first came across this term in John E. Joseph’s Eloquence and Power. The Rise of Language Standards and Standard Languages (1987). 12. The term ‘norm implementation’ is used for ‘norm acceptance’ in selected chapters. 13. Other standardisation accounts in Deumert & Vandenbussche (2003) that differ from Haugen’s original model are Faroese (codification, comments on selection, elaboration, and implementation), Luxembourgish (norm elaboration and norm acceptance), as well as Scots (Selection, Codification, Ongoing codification and Norm acceptance: Good or bad Scots?). 14. Milroy and Milroy (1991), who also provided a model, claim that the main characteristic of standardisation is ‘intolerance of optional variability in language’ (ibid., p. 26). Their standardisation model additionally contains the stages maintenance, prestige and prescription (ibid., p. 27). Even though I find the reason for the inclusion of the additional stages convincing, I find that the looser fit of the Haugen model is more suitable for my study. As I am concerned with a particular linguistic feature, I feel that ‘sub-labelling’ the codification stage prescription stage already suggests in advance that the grammarians tried to prescribe rules rather than describe the use of the subjunctive. An assessment of whether the grammarians’ treatment of the mood was in fact prescriptive should only be made when all the available accounts have been carefully studied. 15. Mattheier (2003) provides an account of the standardisation process in Stan- dard German based on Haugen’s model and briefly mentions the situation in Austria in the codification section. He notes that the southern German and Austrian regions participate in the standardisation process after the publica- tion of Gottsched’s grammar. The only other grammarian who is mentioned with respect to the Austrian standardisation process is Antesperg, who is the first Austrian to publish a German grammar in 1747 (see Mattheier, 2003, pp. 226–227). 2 Eighteenth-century English Grammarians and the subjunctive mood 1. Parts of the research described here have appeared in Auer (2004). 2. In fact, Michael surveys an impressive number of 258 grammars, which he treats anonymously, and ascertains ‘at the very least’ 24 different systems in the period (Michael, 1970, p. 434). 3. This confirms Vorlat’s statement that ‘[w]hat they do, in fact, is translate whole chapters of the Port-Royal grammar. Their theorizing is singled out typographically, by smaller print and by means of footnotes’ (Vorlat, 2007, p. 501). 4. I thank Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade for the advice to compare Lowth’s first and second grammar editions. 190 Notes 5. It should be pointed out here that it is not relevant to the argument of this study that changes found in editions after Murray’s death may be attributable to successive editors. 6. In Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s study of exemplification in eighteenth-century grammars, she suggested four categories into which the different examples can be divided. These are ‘a) examples that have obviously been made up by the author; b) examples that have been translated from those traditionally found in Latin grammars; c) examples that have been copied, or translated from grammars published previously; and d) examples that are quotations’ (Tieken-Boon van Ostade, 1990, p. 483; also see the classification provided by Sundby et al., 1991). 7. For detailed studies on Lowth’s corpus of prescriptivism, see Tieken-Boon van Ostade (1997) and Navest (2006). 8. The use of writers as models is supported by Joseph’s (1987) statement that ‘[i]n Western culture generally, creative literature is revered as a manifesta- tion of the “genius” of the language within which it is written’ (Joseph, 1987, p. 78). 9. I thank Sylvia Adamson for pointing out this change. 10. I thank Carol Percy for drawing my attention to Ellin Devis’s comment on the subjunctive. 11. Merrick’s criticism that Lowth ignores actual language use for the sake of pro- priety indicates why Lowth is largely considered the pre-eminent language prescriptivist of the eighteenth century. 12. Note that eighteenth-century grammarians did not use the term ‘func- tional overlap’. From a present-day point of view, the confusion of the subjunctive with the indicative and modal auxiliaries would suggest that the subjunctive’s functions were replaceable by other forms. 13. In this study conditional clauses will also be treated under the term adverbial clauses. 3 The subjunctive mood in eighteenth-century England: a corpus study 1. Harsh’s study may be considered as more on par with corpus studies in the modern sense. Harsh’s textual sampling was regulated by a finite-verb count, which he limited to 500 per text. As regards the selection method of textual sampling, Harsh used Chapters 7–14 of the Gospel of St Matthew for the comparisons of the biblical translations and the beginning of texts or specific sections in most cases of the Old and Middle English texts (see Harsh, 1968, pp. 101–102). 2. Note that Harsh (1968) classes Shakespeare as a seventeenth-century writer because of the edition of the work used. 3. The translators of the Authorized Version stated in the introduction to the Bible that ‘[t]ruly (good Christian Reader) wee neuer thought from the beginning, that we should neede to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, [ ...] but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not iustly to be excepted against; that hath bene our indeauour, that our marke’ (1611, Introduction). The 1611 King James Version of the Bible may therefore be regarded as a revision, Notes 191 which was largely dependent on the scholarship of Tyndale, Coverdale and the translators of the Geneva Bible (see Hammond, 1982, p. 193). This suggests that the English language used in the Authorized Version reflects more archaic language use from the sixteenth century. 4. The grammarian Maittaire also noticed the decline of the subjunctive in different versions of the Bible: ‘Indicative or Potential; as the Conditional if ; the Exceptive, except or unleß; if thou dost well; if thou do well, Gen.4.7. (the last is read rather in old, the first in new-printed Bibles) [ ...]’ (Maittaire, 1712, p. 172). 5. I must point out here that one advantage of Harsh’s study is the fact that he was able to investigate the subjunctive in different syntactic contexts (Wish- Curse, Command, Indirect Narrative, Noun Clause, Relative Clause, Purpose, Conditional, etc.), something that is difficult to do when the investigation is based on corpora in the modern sense (see Section 2). 6. The letters SC are an acronym for Scottish Corpus and the numbers following represent different periods.

Load more