ICOME6 Abstract

Stefan Thim

Verb-Particle Constructions in Middle English: Revisiting the Evidence

In their introduction to Middle English, Horobin & Smith characterise the English verbparticle construction (viz. the ‘phrasal verb’) as a “characteristic English formation that developed during the ME period” (2002: 75). Following Strang (1970) and very much in line with other standard accounts of the history of English (cf. e.g. Kastovsky 1992 and Burnley 1992), they claim that the development of the phrasal verbs has been influenced by Old Norse and French (others have also suggested that Celtic influence may have played a role in the development, cf. the discussion in Veselinović 2006) and that the phrasal verbs have always been connected to ‘colloquial’ registers.

There is indeed a long tradition – going back to the 18th century – to see the ‘phrasal verb’ as a construction type that is peculiar to English and somehow special in its semantic, syntactic and stylistic properties. But the English verb-particle construction is less special than many English scholars tend to think. In fact, there are close parallels in the other Germanic languages and virtually nothing in the English construction is particularly remarkable. I have recently tried to show (cf. Thim forthc.) that the notion that the development of the phrasal verb might be connected to Scandinavian influence is a clear instance of contact romanticism (cf. Lass 1997 for the term). There is not the slightest bit of evidence for interference from Old Norse (cf. also the critical assessment in Dance 2003). Moreover, considering the parallel structures in other West Germanic languages it seems methodologically dubious to explain the English development as the result of language contact with North Germanic dialects.

In my paper I should like to reassess the evidence for a special status of the English construction with respect to the situation in Middle English. I will argue that the development of the phrasal verbs is definitely not the “main syntactic innovation in the verb phrase during the ME period” (Horobin & Smith 2002: 99); rather, the syntax of the construction is merely epiphenomenal to other (indigenous) long-term developments. This is also true with regard to the semantic development (cf. the papers in Brinton & Akimoto 1999), while the lexical status of the construction tends to be distorted by the selection of unrepresentative examples.

References

Brinton, Laurel & Minoji Akimoto. Eds. 1999. Collocational and Idiomatic Aspects of Composite Predicates in the History of English. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Burnley, David. 1992. “Lexis and Semantics”. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language II: 1066– 1476. Ed. Norman Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 409–499.
Dance, Richard. 2003. Words Derived from Old Norse in Early Middle English: Studies in the Vocabulary of the South-West Midland Texts. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Horobin, Simon & Jeremy Smith. 2002. An Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
Kastovsky, Dieter. 1992. “Semantics and Vocabulary”. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language I: The Beginnings to 1066. Ed. Richard Hogg. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 290–408.
Lass, Roger. 1997. Historical Linguistics and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Strang, Barbara M.H. 1970. A History of English. London: Methuen.
Thim, Stefan. Forthc. “The Rise of the Phrasal Verb in English: A Case of Scandinavian Influence?”. To appear in: Anglistentag 2007 Münster: Proceedings of the Conference of the German Association of University Teachers of English 29. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
Veselinović, Elvira. 2006. “How to put up with cur suas le rud and the Bidirectionality of Contact”. In: The Celtic Englishes IV. Ed. Hildegard L.C. Tristram. Potsdam: Potsdam UP, 173–190.