DOCSLIB.ORG

<HAVE + PERFECT PARTICIPLE> in ROMANCE and ENGLISH

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
<HAVE + PERFECT PARTICIPLE> in ROMANCE and ENGLISH <HAVE + PERFECT PARTICIPLE> IN ROMANCE AND ENGLISH: SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Diego A. de Acosta May 2006 © 2006 Diego A. de Acosta <HAVE + PERFECT PARTICIPLE> IN ROMANCE AND ENGLISH: SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY Diego A. de Acosta, Ph.D. Cornell University 2006 Synopsis: At first glance, the development of the Romance and Germanic have- perfects would seem to be well understood. The surface form of the source syntagma is uncontroversial and there is an abundant, inveterate literature that analyzes the emergence of have as an auxiliary. The “endpoints” of the development may be superficially described as follows (for English): (1) OE Ic hine ofslægenne hæbbe > Eng I have slain him The traditional view is that the source syntagma, <have + noun.ACC + perfect participle>, is structured [have [noun participle]], and that this syntagma undergoes change as have loses its possessive meaning. In this dissertation, I demonstrate that the traditional view is untenable and readdress two fundamental questions about the development of have-perfects: (i) how is the early ability of have to predicate possession connected with its later role in the perfect?; (ii) what are the syntactic structures and meanings of <have + noun.ACC + perfect participle> before the emergence of the have-perfect? With corpus evidence, I show that that the surface string <have + noun.ACC + perfect participle> corresponds to three different structures in Old English and Latin; all of these survive into modern English and the Romance languages. I propose that the likeliest source of the have- perfect is the structure exemplified in: (2) Now he has his opponent cornered. Sentences like (2), amply attested in Latin and Old English, contain an aspectual periphrasis that potentially describes two stages of a complex situation: the subject’s achievement of a result and a persisting resultant state. I hypothesize that the structure exemplified in (2) only became available after have had undergone semantic widening and entered into a systematic association with other expressions of possession and pertaining. I also devote considerable attention to the differing values <have + perfect participle>. Though English and the Romance languages all have a formally equivalent verbal construction, the time reference of this “same” construction varies significantly across languages. I argue that the value of <have + perfect participle> in a given language is best understood, synchronically and diachronically, in terms of the values of the verb forms that it complements. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Diego A. de Acosta was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1975. He was raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Madison, Wisconsin, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. He graduated from Princeton University in 1998, and in 1998-1999 worked as a Princeton-in-Asia intern teaching English as a second language in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He earned his Masters degree in linguistics from Cornell University in 2003. While enrolled at Cornell, he had the opportunity to take language and linguistics courses at the Universidade de Coimbra, the Universidade de Lisboa, and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could not have been written without the help of many teachers, colleagues, friends, and family members. I am delighted to have the opportunity to thank you all. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my committee members for their energy, interest, and expertise. Carol Rosen, thank you for serving as an enthusiastic committee chair, for sharing your erudition in all things Romance, for meeting with me so frequently, for providing constant feedback and gomitate, and for carefully reading and rereading various versions of the material in this dissertation. I feel very fortunate to have worked with you. Wayne Harbert, thank you for constantly encouraging me to add new dimensions to this work, for repeatedly pointing out valuable books and articles, and for generously sharing your time and tea to help me with Germanic grammar and undecipherable passages of Old English. John Whitman, thank you for your continued interest in my project from its conception in your Diachronic Syntax class, for motivating me to keep theoretical considerations in mind, and for sharing the dinner table with graduate students and professors alike. Alan Nussbaum, thank you for your incalculable help with Proto-Indoeuropean and for contributing your meticulousness, patience, and magna sapientia to the analysis of the Latin materials. Other professors who have contributed significantly to this dissertation are Sally McConell-Ginet, who led the research workshop where I first presented this material to colleagues, and Elena de Miguel of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, who read an earlier version of some of this work and introduced me to new ideas on aspect. Thank you both for taking the time to read and provide feedback on my work. iv Tanya, thank you for your constant support, company, and reminders to contemplate and enjoy the vast world of non-dissertation. I’m glad I can thank you in person every day. To my main support network—Devon, Dan, Andrew, Eric, and Leah—thank you for sharing all the coffees, teas, movies, puzzles and board games, and dips in Lake Cayuga. I can’t imagine what Cornell would have been like without you. To my extended academic family of fellow grad students and recent Ph.D.’s—Johanna, Marc, Teju, Rob, Ana, Cristina, Ellert, Marisol, Irene, Yumiko, Rachel, Edith—thank you for listening, asking questions, and commiserating about Ithaca winters and grad student life. Marty, thanks for helping me sit down and write this thing...and for helping me get out of the chair and go for a walk. You are an inspiration. Angie Tinti and Sheila Haddad, thank you for your hard work and support. The research for this dissertation was funded in large part by a generous graduate student fellowship provided by the National Science Foundation. Thank you to the Foundation for this great honor. Finally, I would like to thank my family—Mamá, Papá, and Alejandro—whose support and nonchalant attitude of “of course you’ll finish your doctorate, we all did” was the finest anti-anxiety prescription I could ask for. Gracias. v TABLE OF CONTENTS page Biographical Sketch.............................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents.................................................................................................. vi List of Figures....................................................................................................... vii List of Tables........................................................................................................ ix List of Abbreviations and Symbols....................................................................... x Chapter 1: Rethinking the study of <have + perfect participle>........................... 1 Chapter 2: A classification of predicates according to inherent lexical aspect..... 24 Chapter 3: <have + perfect participle> in present-day English and the modern Romance languages............................................................................................... 49 Chapter 4: Complex predicates in Relational Grammar....................................... 95 Chapter 5: <have + noun.ACC + perfect participle> in present-day English and the modern Romance languages........................................................................... 112 Chapter 6: Rethinking the genesis of the Romance periphrastic perfect.............. 148 Chapter 7: Rethinking the genesis of the English periphrastic perfect................. 209 Bibliography.......................................................................................................... 241 vi LIST OF FIGURES page 4.1 Janis has opened the door.......................................................................... 95 4.2 Janis kept the door open............................................................................ 95 4.3 Janis has kept the door open...................................................................... 96 4.4 Poirot caught the cat burglar red-handed................................................... 98 4.5 Poirot caught the cat burglar stealing the crown jewels............................ 99 4.6 The cat burglar was stealing the crown jewels.......................................... 101 4.7 Philip knows the old man drinking a coffee.............................................. 103 4.8 She found the door locked......................................................................... 104 4.9 She heard the door locked (by the guard) ................................................. 104 4.10 Poirot saw the cat burglar stealing the crown jewels—reinitialization..... 107 4.11 Poirot saw the cat burglar stealing the crown jewels—inheritance........... 107 4.12 She saw the guard lock the door—null-valent inner predicate.................. 110 4.13 She saw the guard lock the door—raising................................................. 110 5.1 Henry has the radio on............................................................................... 120 5.2 Henry has the gardener trimming the hedges............................................ 120 5.3 I have the key hidden................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Perfect Tenses 8.Pdf
    Name Date Lesson 7 Perfect Tenses Teaching The present perfect tense shows an action or condition that began in the past and continues into the present. Present Perfect Dan has called every day this week. The past perfect tense shows an action or condition in the past that came before another action or condition in the past. Past Perfect Dan had called before Ellen arrived. The future perfect tense shows an action or condition in the future that will occur before another action or condition in the future. Future Perfect Dan will have called before Ellen arrives. To form the present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect tenses, add has, have, had, or will have to the past participle. Tense Singular Plural Present Perfect I have called we have called has or have + past participle you have called you have called he, she, it has called they have called Past Perfect I had called we had called had + past participle you had called you had called he, she, it had called they had called CHAPTER 4 Future Perfect I will have called we will have called will + have + past participle you will have called you will have called he, she, it will have called they will have called Recognizing the Perfect Tenses Underline the verb in each sentence. On the blank, write the tense of the verb. 1. The film house has not developed the pictures yet. _______________________ 2. Fred will have left before Erin’s arrival. _______________________ 3. Florence has been a vary gracious hostess. _______________________ 4. Andi had lost her transfer by the end of the bus ride.
    [Show full text]
  • The Formation, Translation and Use of Participles in Latin, and the Nature of Relative Time
    Chapter 23: Participles Chapter 23 covers the following: the formation, translation and use of participles in Latin, and the nature of relative time. At the end of the lesson we’ll review the vocabulary which you should memorize in this chapter. There are four important rules to remember in Chapter 23: (1) Latin has four participles: the present active, the future active; the perfect passive and the future passive. It lacks, however, a present passive participle (“being [verb]-ed”) and a perfect active participle (“having [verb]-ed”). (2) The perfect passive, future active and future passive participles belong to first/second declension. The present active participle belongs to third declension. (3) The verb esse has only a future active participle (futurus). It lacks both the present active and all passive participles. (4) Participles show relative time. What are participles? At heart, participles are verbs which have been turned into adjectives. Thus, technically participles are “verbal adjectives.” The first part of the word (parti-) means “part;” the second part (-cip-) means “take,” indicating that participles “partake, share” in the characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. In other words, the base of a participle is verbal, giving it some of the qualities of a verb, for instance, tense: it can indicate when the action is happening (now or then or later; i.e. present, past or future); conjugation: what thematic vowel will be used (e.g. -a- in first conjugation, -e- in second, and so on); voice: whether the word it’s attached to is acting or being acted upon (i.e.
    [Show full text]
  • Outline for a Truth Conditional Semantics for Tense
    Outline for a Truth Conditional Semantics for Tense Ernest Lepore Center for Cognitive Science Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08903 [email protected] Kirk Ludwig Department of Philosophy University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611-8545 [email protected] Forthcoming, 2002, Tense, Time and Reference, ed. Q. Smith (MIT Press) Outline for a Truth Conditional Semantics for Tense Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig 1 Introduction The use of verbs inflected or modified for tense, and temporal adverbs, indexicals, and quantifiers, pervades everyday speech. Getting clearer about their semantics promises not only to help us to understand how we understand each other, but is also a step toward clarifying the nature of time and temporally located thoughts. Our aim in the present paper is to investigate, from the standpoint of truth-theoretic semantics, English tense, temporal designators and quantifiers, and other expressions we use to relate ourselves and other things to the temporal order. Truth-theoretic semantics provides a particularly illuminating standpoint from which to discuss issues about the semantics of tense, and their relation to thoughts at, and about, times. Tense, and temporal modifiers, contribute systematically to conditions under which sentences we utter are true or false. A Tarski-style truth-theoretic semantics, by requiring explicitly represented truth conditions, helps to sharpen questions about the function of tense, and to deepen our insight into the contribution the tenses and temporal modifiers make to what we say by using them. We are interested in a semantic, rather than syntactic, phenomenon. Although tense is identified traditionally with verb inflection, our concern is with linguistic devices used for indicating a time interval, relative to, or in, which a state or activity is to be understood to occur or obtain.
    [Show full text]
  • Language Reference
    Language reference Unit 1 | Tenses Past perfect Present simple Use the past perfect to put events in the past in sequence. The past perfect indicates that the action it refers to happened before a Use the present simple reference to the past simple. 1 to talk about general facts, states, and situations I had heard from the locals that there were several interesting sites. The purpose of business is to make a profit. 2 to talk about regular or repeated actions, or permanent situations Past perfect continuous Jack works for Nissan. Use the past perfect continuous to refer to an action in progress before something else happened. 3 to talk about timetabled future events He was the one who had been working on the project, but his boss The meeting starts at 10.00. was the one who got all the credit. Present continuous Should Use the present continuous 1 Use should + infinitive to recommend something strongly. 1 to talk about an action in progress at the time of speaking / You should try that vegetarian restaurant on the river. writing 2 Use should + perfect infinitive to talk about a lost opportunity. I’m trying to get through to Jon Berks. You should have gone this morning – it was quite an interesting 2 to talk about a very current activity, taking place around the time meeting. of speaking 3 Use could / should + infinitive to predict. They are pushing the area for development. It could / should turn out to be quite an interesting conference. 3 to talk about fixed plans or arrangements in the future I am meeting the management committee on Friday.
    [Show full text]
  • Grammar 4 – the Perfect Tenses the Present Perfect – an Introduction
    Grammar 4 – The Perfect Tenses Welcome to a minefield! No, it’s not all that bad really, although gaining mastery of the Perfect Tense system is something which many students find difficult. Some students master the present and past, and appear to embrace the future forms with relative ease, yet fail to comprehend how and when to use the Perfect Tenses. We have seen many a good intermediate student fail to make additional progress because they have been unable to get to grips with this tense. So what is it all about? In this section we will look at 3 perfect forms; Past, Present and Future. The Present Perfect – an introduction The Present Perfect is a way of linking the past to the present. Whether it exists in other languages or not, it is a traditionally difficult concept for students to grasp and a notorious bugbear for teachers. A good sign of fluency in the English language is the ability to use it correctly. Do not attempt to teach the Present Perfect without the aid of a good grammar book (at least until you are familiar with it - we recommend ‘The Good Grammar Book’ by Swan). It is worth ensuring you become familiar with this tense as common interview questions for jobs include the following: ‘Describe the 3 uses of the Present Perfect’ ‘How would you approach a lesson on the Present Perfect?’ ‘How would you explain the difference between the Past Simple and the Present Perfect Tenses to a class?’ By the end of this module you should be able to answer these questions.
    [Show full text]
  • Grammar: Verbs—Perfect Tenses Practice
    Name: Date: Grammar: Verbs—Perfect Tenses Practice The tense of a verb shows the time of an action. The perfect tense describes an action that was or will be completed at a certain time. In perfect tenses, the helping verb changes tense. The chart lists the perfect tenses. Verb Tense invite (invited) Present Perfect: action begun in the I have invited my friends to the party. past that continues up to the present have + past participle Past Perfect: action begun in the I had invited my friends to the party, past that ended but some couldn’t make it. had + past participle Future Perfect: action begun in the By tonight, I will have invited past or present, completed in the everyone. future will have + past participle Underline the perfect tense verbs in the sentences, and write what tense forms they are. Example: Suzie had hoped to win last week’s race. past perfect Suzie had hoped to win last week’s race. 1. Have you heard of the lost city of Atlantis? 2. I had not thought about it for years. 3. Soon I will have read almost everything on the subject. 4. They say that Atlantis had been a rival of Athens. 5. There have been many references to this strange place in myths. 6. Perhaps Atlantis had sunk during an earthquake. 7. Since then, many adventurers and scholars have looked for it. 8. By now, they will have searched both seas and oceans. 9. They will have discovered many lost cities in the process. 10. No one has ever found evidence of Atlantis’s existence.
    [Show full text]
  • The Interna1 Structure of Absolute Small Clauses Luis Mpez Cornell University
    The Interna1 Structure of Absolute Small Clauses Luis Mpez Cornell University This paper is an investigation into the functionai shucture of Absolute Small Clauses (ASCs), with data based on Spanish. ASCs are composed of a predicate and an NP and they are adjoined to a main clause without a mediating complementizer. It is shown that theu structure is not 'speciai' but a proper subset of main clause structure. ASCs have some interesting restrictions: (i) Individual Level (IL) predicates are disailowed. (ii) deep subjects are disailowed, and (iii) the order NP+predicate is disailowed. The analysis of (i)-(iii) relies on recent proposais regarding clause structure, in particular, (i) Diesing's Mapping Hypothesis and her structurai analysis of the IndividuallStage Level distinction and (ii) what Koizumi has termed the Split VP Hypothesis, according to which some functionai categories are generated between the lower and the upper VP shells. Additionaily, the question of how the case of the NP is checked is addressed, and it is suggested that the feature composition of the head Aspect in ASCs is minimaily different from that of main clauses. A discussion of Itaiian ASCs ensues and it is argued that they have the same structure as the Spanish ones. 1. Introduction The empirical scope of this paper is Spanish Absolute Small Clauses (henceforth ASCs). ASCs are adjuncts composed of a predicate -usually, but not necessarily, a past participle- and a noun phrase, which is optional in many cases. In (la) the predicate that heads the ASC is a participle, in (Ib,c) it is an adjective, in (lc,d) it is an adverb (examples from Hernanz (1991)): Catalun Working Papers in Linguistics (CatWPL) 4.1 '(1994):45-92 Universitat Autbnoma de Barcelona (1) a.
    [Show full text]
  • Perfect Verb Tense Practice Part 1: Fill in the Blank Fill in Each Blank with the Correct Term from the Word List Below
    Name:_______________________________________ Date:________________ Perfect Verb Tense Practice Part 1: Fill in the Blank Fill in each blank with the correct term from the word list below. Some items on the word list will not be used. No term from the word list will be used more than once. past perfect present perfect future perfect progressive perfect go has had went will have 1. Which perfect verb tense is used for an action that happened in the past that stopped or ended before another action (that is also already over) started? 2. Which perfect verb tense is used to describe a future action that will end before a different future action begins? 3. Which perfect verb tense describes actions that have continued up to the present time, though there is uncertainty as to whether the actions will continue? 4. Which helping verb accompanies a future perfect tense verb? 5. Which helping verb accompanies a present perfect tense verb? 6. Which helping verb accompanies a past perfect tense verb? Part 2: Choose the Correct Perfect Tense Verb Select the correct perfect tense verb for the following sentences. Circle your answer. 1. She finished her homework 6. John to travel to California before I offered to help. next month, but he now can’t afford a plane ticket. a. have completely a. have planned b. had completely b. had planned c. will have completely c. will have planned 2. I 50 hours this week by the 7. I on time every day so far this time Thursday is over. week, and don’t expect to be late any time soon.
    [Show full text]
  • Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Shekgalagari Thera Crane
    UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2009) Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Shekgalagari Thera Crane 1. Introduction and goals Shekgalagari (updated Guthrie number S.31d (Maho 2003) is a Bantu language spoken in western Botswana and parts of eastern Namibia. It is closely related to Setswana, but exhibits a number of phonological, morphological, and tonal phenomena not evident in Setswana. It has been described by Dickens (1986), but its complex Tense, Aspect, and Mood (TAM)-marking system remains largely undescribed. This paper represents an effort to initiate such a description. It is by no means complete, but I hope that it may spur further investigation and description. Data were collected in the spring semester of 2008 at the University of California, Berkeley, in consultation with Dr. Kemmonye “Kems” Monaka, a native speaker and visiting Fulbright Scholar from the University of Botswana. All errors, of course, are my own. Data for this paper were collected as part of a study of Shekgalagari tone and downstep involving Dr. Monaka, Professor Larry Hyman of the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of this paper. Data are drawn from the notes of the author and of Professor Hyman, and from personal communications with Dr. Monaka. Because the aim of the study was not the description of the TAM system as such, a number of forms were not elicited and are missing from this document. All need further investigation in terms of their semantics, pragmatics, and range of uses. Particular areas of interest for future study are noted throughout. 1.1. Structure of paper Section 2 gives a general introduction to tone in Shekgalagari and important tone processes, including phrasal penultimate lengthening and lowering (2.2), spreading rules including grammatical H assignment (with “unbounded spreading”; 2.3) and bounded high-tone spreading (2.4), and downstep (2.5).
    [Show full text]
  • Irregular Verbs Simple Present, Simple Past and Present Perfect Tenses
    Irregular Verbs Irregular Verbs Simple Present, Simple Past and Present Perfect Tenses This is a list of Irregular Verbs. I will read the base form, the simple past tense and the past participle of the verb. Then, I will read the verb in three sentences, a simple present tense sentence, a simple past tense sentence and a present perfect tense sentence. There will be time for you to repeat the verbs and sentences. Try it, it is good practice! Base Past Past Participle Sentences Be was / were been Simple present tense I am in class now. Simple past tense I was in class yesterday. Present perfect tense I have been in class since 6:30pm. Become became become Simple present tense Many people become U.S. citizens every year. Simple past tense My sister became a U.S. citizen last month. Present perfect tense My sister has just become a U.S. citizen. Begin began begun Simple present tense We begin class at 8:30am every day. Simple past tense We began class at 8:30am yesterday Present perfect tense We have just begun class. Bend bent bent Simple present tense Maria always bends the straw. Simple past tense Maria bent the straw and put it in the can of soda. Present perfect tense Maria has bent the straw many times. Bite bit bitten Simple present tense Some dogs bite people Simple past tense A dog bit a man yesterday. Present perfect tense Those dogs have bitten people a few times. 1 Irregular Verbs Base Past Past participle Sentences Blow blew blown Simple present tense The wind blows all the time.
    [Show full text]
  • A Review of Verb Tense
    A Review of Verb Tense Author/Creation: Jennifer Mond, July 2010. Summary: Describes the four categories of verb tense (simple, perfect, progressive, and perfect progressive) and how present, past, and future function within each category. Learning Objectives: To define the four categories of verb tense. The tense of a verb indicates the time of the action or state of being that is expressed by the verb. Each of the six tenses has a basic form. All basic forms are derived from the principal parts: present (base), present participle (be verb plus –ing), past (‐ed), and past participle (‐en plus have, had, has). Using the correct tense of verbs when you speak and write is essential to understanding in what time period actions took place. There are four categories of verb tenses: simple, perfect, progressive, and perfect progressive, with a version of the present, past, and future in each category. Each tense has its own meaning. When the actions take place (completed, ongoing, continuing into the future, has yet to occur) determines which tense to use. Simple Forms Let’s start with the simple tenses. Present First is the present tense, which indicates actions or conditions occurring now. Present tense is often used to state general information as well as thoughts and opinions. Ex. Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Ex. They are angry about the decision. Past Next is the past tense, which indicates actions or conditions that have occurred already and do not extend into the present. Ex. She felt better after her test. Ex. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
    [Show full text]
  • The Chapter 45 Checklist
    Ch. 45 Grammar Cards Grammar CARDS for Ecce Romani Book II, page 1 How to make cards: all the information is given to you. Simply copy down the information in the simulated cards below onto your real index cards. The act of writing out the info should encourage comprehension of that info, or at the very least you have made study cards for tests and midterms and finals. Eugepae! Note below that the info on the cards below is given horizontally, the left box = the front of the card, while the right box = the back of the card. An Example: [Front Side of Card A] [Back side of Card A] Who was the 1st Roman o Augustus Caesar emperor? Ch. # CHAPTER 45 What is in Chapter 45? Pyramus and Thisbe o Future Active Participles o Verbs: Participles (Consolidation) o Chart on page 185: compares Latin Participles o Chart on page 186: Latin deponent Participles Myth VI: Ovid’s Metamorphoses Roman Life XXVI: Lovers’ Graffiti Ch. 45 o Word Study XI: Diminutive Suffixes; Frequentative Verbs I know… The Chapter that the Future Active Participle is created by going to the 4th principal part of the verb and adding –ūr- before the endings 45 that the Future Active Participle (FAP) is a 2-1-2 adjective (& declines like bonus/a/um) Checklist: that the translation of the FAP is “going to verb” or “about to verb” or “determined to verb” that the Relative Time of the FAP to the Main Verb in the sentence is always more future: TIME SUBSEQUENT the chart on page 185 which compares Latin participles the chart on page 186 which gives examples of deponent Latin Ch.
    [Show full text]