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AN INVESTIGATION OF CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE GENITIVE NOUN PHRASE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH (1150-1500) SARA MYERS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PHD UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 2014 ABSTRACT The evolution of the genitive noun phrase in English has been the subject of numerous studies, yet some aspects of this evolution have received less attention than others. In this study I address two of these less studied aspects: the evolution of the plural genitive noun phrase in Middle English (1150-1500), and the decline of the overtly case-marked genitive modifiers (singular and plural) in the same period. The former has generally been presented as following the same path of the singular genitive noun phrase; the latter has been all but ignored, with only a single study (Thomas 1931) which explicitly examines the use of the genitive definite article and strong adjective. The study uses text samples from two electronic corpora, the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English and the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, Second Edition, as well as samples from printed editions. The texts used in the present study have been selected with the aim of covering as wide a geographical and chronological range as possible. The thesis examines how and why the number of endings for the genitive plural inflection first increased (in the period up to about 1350) and then decreased (from 1350 onward), a fluctuation not found in the singular inflected genitive noun. The number of available inflectional endings increased due to the morphophonological weaknesses of the -V ending type – the dominant ending type inherited from OE – leading to instabilities in the inflectional system which allowed alternatives to arise. However, the number of genitive plural inflectional endings then decreased, apparently affected not only by the phonological strength/weakness of the ending types but also the type of noun phrase that these were associated with. The inflectional ending which survives, -Vs, is most commonly found with genitive noun phrases in which the genitive noun is animate and the noun phrase has one of the genitive functions labelled POSSESSIVE in this study. This distribution of the various inflectional endings according to animacy and function is related to the rise of the periphrastic genitive plural noun phrase. The initial preferred environment for the periphrastic genitive construction is noun phrases with those functions which will be referred to as NONPOSSESSIVE. As the inflected genitive becomes increasingly restricted to a single noun phrase type, the periphrastic construction expands, to become the default genitive construction by the end of the period. The thesis examines the decline of overtly case-marked genitive modifiers in Middle English, both adjective and determiners. In general, the trend is that morphologically more conservative texts are more likely to preserve case-marked modifier forms, although some marked forms are more widespread due to the development of fixed expressions. Where case-marked modifiers are maintained, historical grammatical gender agreement and the strong/weak adjective distinction are often preserved. Factors which play a role in the survival of marked modifiers are chronological distribution, impact of Old English exemplars, and the development of certain fixed expressions with the adjectives. Thomas (1931) considered the loss of case-marked definite articles and strong adjectives to be the principal factor in the shift from inflected to periphrastic genitive constructions, but the evidence from the present study shows that this is not the case for all texts. i I hereby declare that this thesis is my own composition, and that it contains no material previously submitted for the award of any other degree. The work reported within this thesis has been carried out by myself, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text. Sara Myers October 2014 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Linda van Bergen and Dr. Margaret Laing, for their support and encouragement over the years it took to complete this thesis. Their advice, criticism and suggestions have made this a better thesis; sadly, any errors are entirely my responsibility. Thanks most of all to Sergio, whose support and encouragement never wavered. Grazie amore. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction 1 1.1.1 Plural GNPS 2 1.1.2 Modifiers of genitive nouns 4 1.2 Research Questions 4 1.3 Corpus and Methodology 7 1.3.1 Corpora 7 1.3.2 Methodology 10 1.4 Terminological Matters 11 1.4.1 Genitive functions 12 1.4.2 Remaining terms 15 1.5 Organisation 17 CHAPTER 2: GENITIVE PLURAL NOUNS 2.1 Introduction 19 2.1.1 Methodology 20 2.1.2 Data gaps 22 2.1.3 OE genitive plural 24 2.2 Overview of ME genitive plural 24 2.2.1 Endings 25 2.2.2 Chronological variation 29 2.3 The endingless genitive: -Ø 31 2.4 The OE strong descendant: -V 35 2.4.1 Archaism? 35 iv 2.4.2 Regional and chronological distribution of -V 37 2.4.3 Lexemes, animacy and function 39 2.4.3.1 -V, periphrasis, and the partitive 42 2.5 The OE weak descendant: -VnV 43 2.5.1 Lexical distribution of -VnV 44 2.5.2 Regional and chronological variation 48 2.5.3 Animacy and function 49 2.6 The Innovation: -Vs 50 2.6.1 Early Middle English (pre-1350) 51 2.6.1.1 Regional distribution 51 2.6.1.2 Animacy and function 55 2.6.1.3 Lexical distribution 56 2.6.2 Later Middle English (1350-1500) 57 2.7 An unexpected ending: -Vn 58 2.8 Conclusion 62 2.8.1 Summary 62 2.8.2 System instability and reorganisation 65 CHAPTER 3: GENITIVE MODIFIERS 3.1 Introduction 67 3.1.1 OE modifiers 68 3.1.2 Methodology 71 3.2 Genitive Singular Adjectives 73 3.2.1 Overview 73 3.2.2 Marked and unmarked forms of the genitive singular adjective 78 v 3.2.2.1 Gender concord 81 3.2.2.2 Strong/weak distinction 84 3.2.2.3 Variation at the level of the individual text 86 3.3 Singular genitive articles 87 3.3.1 Definite articles 88 3.3.2 Genitive articles and OE gender 93 3.3.3 The indefinite article 96 3.4 Genitive singular demonstratives 98 3.5 Genitive singular modifiers 102 3.5.1 Gender 102 3.5.2 Relative decline of the singular genitive marked modifiers 104 3.6 Genitive plural modifiers 105 3.6.1 Adjectives 105 3.6.2 Definite articles 109 3.6.3 Demonstratives 111 3.7 Conclusion 112 CHAPTER 4: THE CONTINUED SURVIVAL OF GENITIVE MODIFIERS 4.1 Introduction 114 4.1.1 Methodology 114 4.2 The weak adjective context 115 4.2.1 Historical context of the weak adjective 115 4.2.2 Weak adjectives in ME 117 4.2.2.1 Plural adjectives in historically weak contexts 119 4.2.2.2. Singular adjectives in historically weak contexts 119 vi 4.3 Singular GNPs 121 4.3.1. Nouns with the -Ø ending type 122 4.3.2 Nouns which have the -e ending type 125 4.3.3 Nouns which have the -es ending type 128 4.3.4 Adjectives which modify -es nouns and fixed expressions 131 4.3.4.1 Quantifiers 133 4.3.4.2 Functions of GNPs with kunnes and weies 135 4.3.4.2.1 weies 136 4.3.4.2.2 kunnes 137 4.3.4.2.3 Quantifier form 143 4.3.4.3 Regionalism 143 4.3.5 Conclusion 145 4.4 Plural GNPs 146 4.4.1 Genitive plural definite article 147 4.4.2 Genitive plural adjectives 151 4.4.2.1 Fossilisation of alre 155 4.5 Prediction problems 157 4.6 Conclusion 161 CHAPTER 5: VARIATION BETWEEN INFLECTED AND PERIPHRASTIC GENITIVES IN THE PLURAL GNP 5.1 Introduction 164 5.1.1 Methodology 167 5.2 Internal factors 169 5.2.1 Separate histories 170 vii 5.2.1.1 Inflection 172 5.2.1.2 Periphrasis 175 5.2.2 Shared histories 179 5.2.2.1 poss_anim 180 5.2.2.2 nonposs_anim 181 5.2.2.3 poss_inan 183 5.2.2.4 nonposs_inan 184 5.2.2.5 Morphological variation in the genitive plural inflection 185 5.2.3 Function and the spread of periphrastic of 189 5.2.4 Conclusion 195 5.3 External factors 196 5.3.1 Translation effects 197 5.3.2 Literary type 203 5.3.2.1 Text type and NP type 207 5.3.3 Conclusions 211 5.4 Regional variation 212 5.5 Morphology & periphrasis 214 5.5.1 Singular 219 5.5.2 Singular and plural 220 5.6 Conclusion 222 Chapter 6: CONCLUSION 6.1 Introduction 225 6.2 Results 226 6.2.1 Genitive plural inflection 226 viii 6.2.2 Genitive modifiers 228 6.2.3 Variation between inflected and periphrastic plural GNPs 229 6.3 Future research 231 Bibliography 232 Appendix A 238 Appendix B 289 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Regional and temporal distribution of texts 23 Table 2.2 All genitive plural inflection forms 25 Table 2.3 Overall frequency of the five ending types 27 Table 2.4 The three major ending types for singular and plural genitive inflection, 1150-1350 27 Table 2.5 Plural genitive inflection ending types through time 29 Table 2.6 Sample plural paradigms of OE noun classes 34 Table 2.7 Texts with genitive plural form -a 36 Table 2.8