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The Perfect in Old English and Old Saxon: the Synchronic And The Perfect in Old English and Old Saxon: The Synchronic and Diachronic Correspondence of Form and Meaning Morgan Macleod St. John’s College This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 69,684 words Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text. Acknowledgements I should like to express my thanks to my supervisor, Sheila Watts, for her invaluable help and comments throughout the research and preparation of this work; I should also like to thank my advisor, David Willis, as well as Kasia Jaszczolt and Ian Roberts, for the input that they have provided at various stages of this work. More generally, I am grateful to the faculty and students of the Department of Linguistics, who have been of help in ways too numerous to mention. I would also mention the Cambridge University Statistics Clinic, which has provided me with the opportunity for helpful discussions on statistical techniques; responsibility for the statistical analysis presented in this dissertation is, of course, my own. I should also like to say that this research was made possible through the generous support of a St. John’s College Benefactors’ Scholarship. Summary Most of the Germanic languages developed new tense forms allowing the grammatical expression of fine semantic distinctions, including periphrastic perfects and pluperfects; previously, the preterite alone had been used to express semantic content of this sort. In the absence of robust quantitative data regarding the subsequent development of these forms and distribution in the early Germanic languages, a relatively uncomplicated model has generally been assumed, in which there is little synchronic variation in their use and a steady, though not necessarily continuous, diachronic progress toward the state observed in the modern languages. The goal of this work is to provide accurate quantitative data regarding the apportionment of these semantic domains among the available grammatical forms in Old English and Old Saxon, in order to provide meaningful measurements of the synchronic and diachronic use of the periphrastic forms. Very different patterns were found in the use of these forms in the two languages. In Old Saxon the periphrastic forms are used freely, with a frequency similar to or greater than that of the preterites. In Old English there are no significant diachronic trends, but considerable variation exists synchronically among texts, with some making free use of the periphrastic forms and others preferring the preterite almost exclusively. A number of factors potentially responsible for this variation have been investigated, but none can account for the entire range of observed variation on its own. In the absence of any other account for the observed variation, the hypothesis is proposed that the periphrastic forms and the preterite differed in their perceived stylistic value, in a manner whose exact nature may be no longer recoverable; such a hypothesis would be in keeping with previous findings regarding languages such as Middle English and Middle High German. Old English and Old Saxon would therefore differ in the extent to which they make use of the potential for variation created by the absence of a paradigmatic opposition among the relevant grammatical categories. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 Tense and Aspect in Germanic: Origins ................................................. 1 1.1.1 Tense and Aspect: Terminology .......................................................... 1 1.1.2 Tense and Aspect in Proto-Indo-European .......................................... 2 1.1.3 Tense and Aspect in Proto-Germanic .................................................. 3 1.2 The Periphrastic Perfect and Grammaticalization ................................ 4 1.2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 4 1.2.2 Grammaticalization .............................................................................. 5 1.2.3 Development of Periphrastic Perfects ................................................ 11 1.2.3.1 General..................................................................................... 11 1.2.3.2 Late Latin and Romance .......................................................... 16 1.3 Periphrastic Perfects in the Germanic Languages ............................... 17 1.3.1 Overview ............................................................................................ 17 1.3.2 The Periphrastic Perfect in Old Saxon ............................................... 19 1.3.3 The Periphrastic Perfect in Old English ............................................ 20 1.4 Role of the Present Study ........................................................................ 24 1.5 Content of the Dissertation ..................................................................... 26 2. The Perfect and Pluperfect as Semantic Categories ......................... 27 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 27 2.2 Events ........................................................................................................ 30 2.2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 30 2.2.2 Events: Nature and Representation .................................................... 31 2.2.2.1 Reichenbach............................................................................. 31 2.2.2.2 Davidson .................................................................................. 34 2.2.2.3 Kim ........................................................................................... 37 2.2.2.4 The Present Approach .............................................................. 39 2.3 The Perfect System in Modern English .................................................. 41 2.3.1 The Perfect ......................................................................................... 41 2.3.2 The Pluperfect .................................................................................... 51 2.3.3 Non-Finite Perfect Forms ................................................................... 54 2.3.4 Compositionality of the Perfect .......................................................... 56 2.4 The Perfect System Cross-Linguistically ............................................... 58 2.4.1 The Perfect ......................................................................................... 58 2.4.2 The Pluperfect .................................................................................... 60 2.5 The Perfect System in Old English and Old Saxon ............................... 61 2.5.1 Periphrastic Constructions .................................................................. 61 2.5.2 The Simple Preterite ........................................................................... 63 2.5.2.1 Adverbial Collocations............................................................. 64 2.5.2.2 Sequence of Tenses .................................................................. 65 2.5.2.3 Translation Practice .................................................................. 68 2.5.2.4 The Preterite and the Perfect .................................................... 69 2.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 70 3. Methodology ..........................................................................................71 3.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 71 3.2 Data Sources ............................................................................................. 72 3.2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 72 3.2.2 Old Saxon ........................................................................................... 73 3.2.3 Old English ......................................................................................... 74 3.2.4 Chronology ......................................................................................... 80 3.2.5 Editorial Practices ............................................................................... 82 3.3 Selection Criteria for Verb Tokens ........................................................ 83 3.3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 83 3.3.2 The Simple Preterite .......................................................................... 84 3.3.2.1 Perfect-Like Preterites ............................................................. 85 3.3.2.2 Pluperfect-Like Preterites ........................................................ 94 3.3.2.3 The Preterite and Mood ........................................................... 99 3.3.2.4 The Preterite and Other Aspects ............................................ 103 3.3.2.5 The Preterite and Verbal Prefixes .......................................... 105 3.3.3 Periphrastic Forms ........................................................................... 107 3.3.3.1 Auxiliaries ............................................................................. 108 3.3.3.2 Stages of Grammaticalization ...............................................
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