Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English

As a counterexample to unidirectionality in grammaticalization, Newmeyer (1998:270) cites the loss of second-person singular subject clitics, e.g., in hastou and wiltou, in 16th century English (Kroch et al. 1982). These forms are a common, albeit optional, feature of Middle English. Though full tho...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Lindquist, Hans, Mair, Christian
Format eBook
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia John Benjamins Publishing Company 2004
John Benjamins
Edition1
SeriesStudies in Corpus Linguistics
Subjects
Discourse analysis
English language
Grammaticalization
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Summary:As a counterexample to unidirectionality in grammaticalization, Newmeyer (1998:270) cites the loss of second-person singular subject clitics, e.g., in hastou and wiltou, in 16th century English (Kroch et al. 1982). These forms are a common, albeit optional, feature of Middle English. Though full thou forms replace -tou/-tow clitics in Early Modern English, second-person plural enclitics, subject proclitics, and object enclitics attest to the continued viability of clisis. This paper argues that -tou/-tow is a reduced form, not a clitic, its disappearance being attributable to loss of a phonological rule, not decliticization. This change predates the replacement of thou by you, the non-expression of subjects in imperatives, and the spread of do in questions and is sudden rather than gradual.
ISBN:9789027222848
9027222843