Structure of the talk

In absolute detail: The development of English absolute constructions from adverbial to additional-context marker Nikki van de Pol & Hubert CuyckensUniversity of LeuvenResearch Foundation ‒ Flanders

Structure of the talk Introducingabsolutes Earlier views on the functionality of ACs Hypothesis Methodology Results Conclusion References

Introduction

Introducing absolutes Someexamples of absolutes (ACs): (1) So within, your very new born sleeping all the time, its body temperature can begin to drop without you knowing. (BNC, 1992) (2) With my form filled in, I phoned. (BNC, 1989) (3)And immediately after this Excuse sent, without tarrying four or five Days, or any more Days, the same Night, you by and by stole away into Norfolk. (PENN, 1571) 2 subtypes • unaugmented absolutes: not introduced by preposition (prototypical & older), as in (1) • augmented absolutes: introducedby a preposition. In PDE typicallywith(out), as in(2), in earlier stages of the language more optionswereavailablesuch as after, before, byreason of,… (3)

Introducing absolutes (4)He turned just as the kettle began to boil, and, the tea forgotten, he strode from the kitchen and out of the flat.(BNC, 1990) non-finiteconstruction predicate + (pro)nominal subject predicate = participle (prototypically) ornoun/NP, adjective/AdjP, adverb/AdvP, prepositionalphrase, infinitive wide range of semantic relations with the matrix clauseoftensimilar to finite (subordinate) adverbialclauses initial, medial and finalpositionpossible; canform a separate sentence as well

Earlier views on the functionality of ACs View A: The AC as purely adverbial Berent (1973: 147) clearlystatesthat 'semantically, the [PDE] absolute bears the samerelationship to the mainsentence as anyothersubordinateclause does' and callsACs and adverbials 'functionallyidentical' Stump (1985: 3) remarksthat PDE absolutes have 'the ability to play the role of a number of different sorts of adverbialclauses' Haspelmath (1995: 27) in reference to absolutes in general (i.e. crosslinguistically) explainsthat 'thisconstructionfunctions as a subordinateclausewithsomenonspecificadverbialrelation to the mainclause' Komen (1994: 11) againstresses the adverbial nature of the construction

Earlier views on the functionality of ACs VIEW B: More than purely adverbial: first indications Kortmann (1995: 215-217) divideshis PDE data semanticallyintothreecategories: a temporal group, a causalgroup and 'a thirdgroupwhichcannotbeglossedbyanyfiniteadverbialclauseexceptperhapsa whileclause' Timofeeva (2010), makesfor Old English a distinctionbetween 'purelyadverbial' ACswhichinclude time, cause, condition and concession and 'adverbial-adjectival' ACsincludingattendantcircumstance, manner and appositiveACs (i.e. thosewithinalienablepossession relations)

Hypothesis & Methodology

Hypothesis The AC is still commonly described as expressing the same range of semantic relationships with its matrix clause as finite adverbial subordinate clauses (e.g. cause, anteriority, concession etc.) and is hence considered on a par with adverbials (Berent 1973: 147; Kisbye 1972: 72) It is hypothesized that the expression of these adverbial relations by ACs has become secondary in PDE, in that a substantial number of ACs have come to express meanings which are less clearly adverbial  ACs in PDE express the general function of 'marker of any additional contextual information’

Hypothesis

Hypothesis • Indicative of this change are ACs that lack a single, clear adverbial interpretation and/or simply form an elaboration on the matrix clause (5) He also made the now-controversial decision to shoot at 48 frames-a-second, which delivers a larger and sharper focus than the usual 24 frames, creating what Jackson sees as a more vivid audience experience. That provoked some negative reactions when Jackson showed 10 minutes of Hobbit footage at CinemaCon in April, with some critics complaining that the daylight sequences were too crisp and looked more like high-definition video than film.(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-hobbit-peter-jackson-warner-bros-1-billion-79301?page=show 18-10-2012) (6)The base on this statue is also very well done with the base being some of the snowy areas you venture into while fighting in the North. (http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/10/07/62874-collecting-the-precious-sideshow-collectibles-snow-troll-statue-review/ 8-10-2012) (7) Large and predominantly white, the King Vulture has gray to black ruff, flight, and tail feathers. The head and neck are bald, with the skin color varying, including yellow, orange, blue, purple, and red. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Vulture, 26-09-2012)

Hypothesis • The AC’s increasing non-adverbial use (i.e., merely marking additional-context) may represent a shift on the subordination ‒ coordination cline, in particular from an integrated (subordinate) structure to a quasi-coordinate structure (paraphrasable by and or whereby) (8) The constant uncertainty took its toll. "We were told a lot of times,understandably, 'Look, you guys, probably another month and we should resolve this,' " says Jackson. "Ultimately, it got a little disheartening, with Guillermo obviously feeling it more than anybody else.” (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-hobbit-peter-jackson-warner-bros-1-billion-79301?page=show 18-10-2012) (9) As Charles Fillmore (1981) put it, " the language of face-to-face conversation is the basic and primary use of language, all others being best described in terms of their manner of deviation from that base". (Clark, Using language, p.10)

Factors favoring the non-adverbial interpretation • Some factors mightcorrelatewith the occurrence of anadverbial vs. non-adverbial (i.e., mere additional context) interpretation • augmentation vs. non-augmentation: any positive correlation between with-augmentation and the AC’s function as ‘mere additional-context’ marker may be explained by with’s bleaching (or generalization) from ‘accompaniment’ meaning to a mere marker of circumstantial information • the position of the AC with respect to the matrix clause (initial, medial, or final): while initial position may be said to encode accommodate (temporal, causal) background information, final position may be preferred for encoding local, additional information (see also Kortmann 1991: 169) • (partial) co-reference between the AC’s subject and the matrix subject: to the extent that ACs may restrict themselves to providing additional context to the information in the main clause, co-reference relations between the AC’s subject and the matrix may increase

Methodology • Corpus-based research • EModE + LModE:1500-1914 PENN parsed corpora • 1,737,853 wordsforEModE and 948,895 wordsforLModE (= entire corpus) • 5,378 absolutes: 3,422 forEModE (224 with-augmented) 1,858 forLModE (315 with-augmented) • genres: drama, fiction, narrative non-fiction, handbooks and sciences, law, religioustexts • Search method: used the corpus’sparsing system; searchedforAC-tags and filtered out wrong codingsmanually • PDE BNC (1985-1994) + KU Leuven Drama Corpus (1969-1972) • 3,611,088 words (= ownselection) • 3,984 absolutes (1,760 with-augmented) • genres: spoken, drama, fiction, narrative non-fiction, handbooks and sciences, poetry, law, religioustexts • Search method: read the entire subcorpus and filtered out ACs

Semanticcategories ADVERBIAL MEANINGS Concession(10) But even with this threat eliminated, Hua's reign was to be short-lived. (BNC, 1991) Condition(11) All being well, it will slowly qualify to make decisions upon progressively more major matters. (BNC, 1991) Reason(12) But Philip, his prestige at stake in this first open challenge to the Angevin position, could not afford to retreat. (BNC, 1989)

Semanticcategories Anteriority(13) Her mistress having died, she adopted us, not we her, about 5 weeks ago, and though our old cat finds her a bit of a trial he does seem somewhat rejuvenated by her presence. (BNC, 1985-1994) Manner(14) He shook out the blanket that topped the picnic items, and sat, his back against the trunk, those long legs stretched out in front of him. (BNC, 1993)

Semanticcategories Result(15) Before long hislegswerecrampingbadly, and one of the cutsonhis back had begun to bleedagain, the red seepingthrough the yellowlinen of histunic. (A Dancewith Dragons, 2011) Accompanyingcircumstance(includessimultaneity)(16) The villagers had laid Father Reynard out on the table and an old woman, tears streaming down her face, was gently bathing the corpse before it was sheeted for burial.(BNC, 1992)

Semanticcategories MERE ADDITIONAL CONTEXT MEANINGS Mixed(17)The controversy deepened with obvious pressure coming from various quarters being put on the authors and the television network.(BNC, 1991) Elaboration (includesaddition and exemplification)(18) It seemed to be a green light to both sides, the brewery's only concern being that they weren't Jehovah's Witnesses or Christian Scientists! (BNC, 1991)

Quasi-coordinatedornot • The label quasi-coordinated was givenwhen the conjunctionandcouldbeplacedbetween the matrix and the (turnedfinite) AC without altering the AC’smeaningorturning the sentenceungrammatical (19) It was an uneasy truce, however, with clear signs of tension persisting. (BNC 1991)√ and clear signs of tension persisted. (20) Johnson heard bagpipes at Armadale, and a story to accompany them of a past Macdonald aggression against a family in Culloden, whom the Macdonalds locked in their church one Sunday morning and torched, this being the tune played while the flames danced. (BNC, 1993) √ and this was the tune played while the flames danced (21) Several small incidents, one revolving around a pop concert, incited more students into action. (BNC, 1991)* and onerevolvedaround a pop concert(22) Most Tories favoured the establishment of a regency, with Mary exercising the regal powers on James's behalf, but this was defeated in the House of Lords on 29 January by the narrow vote of fifty-one to forty-eight.* and Mary exercised the regal powers on James's behalf

Coreferencecategories Non-coreference(23)Although such developments are primarily intended to introduce operating benefits, ie improved specific fuel consumption or thrust to weight ratio, reduced flightdeck workload etc, their maintenance workload implications are less certain. Close to state of the art aircraft operation can be achieved economically by modification or retrofit, iehushkitting, reengineprogrammes, flight deck upgrades, etc.Therefore, with demand outstripping supply for new aircraft production, existing in-service aircraft are replaced more slowly. (BNC, 1991) Part-wholecoreference(24) Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the fact that they were being stared at with unveiled interest by most members of the group, the most curious of all, of course, being Mandy.(BNC, 1993)

Coreferencecategories Inalienablepossession(25) With my head bent over the sink I had plenty of time to work out my options. (BNC, 1991) Full coreference(26) Johnson and Boswell made up their quarrel when they rose, with Johnson saying he would not have turned back, as he had threatened, and headed for Edinburgh.(BNC, 1993) Discoursecoreference(27)Where money is particularly tight, some couples will start married life in a spare room at the home of one set of parents; usually the bride’s. This being the case, the couple have to work hard to establish themselves as a new adult unit. (BNC, 1985-1994)

Results

Old and MiddleEnglish • ACs are usedpurelyadverbially in thisperiod. The AC is most frequentlyused to express a temporal relationwith the matrix clause. (Bauer 2000: 261, Mitchell 1985: 914-922, Visser 1972: 1147-1148, 1259-1261) (28) & ymneacwædeneeodun ut onoelebearwesdune. (Rushworth, Matthew, 26.30) ‘And when they had sung a hymn (lit. 'the hymn sung'), they went out to the Mount of Olives.’ (29) On tam dage tam halende utgangendum of husehesat . . . (WSC, Matthew,13.1)‘On that day, the savior going out of the house, he sat down . . .’ • In myownpreliminaryresearchinto Old English (van de Pol 2010) I did not comeacrossanyevidencetothecontrary

SemanticsEModE-PDE Meaningsassociatedwith the AC as mereadditional-context marker increase in use towards the PDE period. (p-value in χ² test < 0.001 i.e. the change is highly significant)

Semantics PDE Of the 1975 ACswithmereadditional context meanings, 844, or 42.7% couldbeconsideredquasi-coordinated This is 21.2% of all the PDE ACsthatwereanalyzed

Influence of augmentation? Augmentation does notseem to be a determining factor in the expression of anadverbial vs. a mereadditional context meaning Thisfinding is statisticallysupportedby a p-value of 0.491 in the accompanyingχ² test The occasionalnon-with-augmentedACson the other hand clearlyrepresentspecificadverbialmeanings

Influence of position? There is a strong (p < 0.001) correlationbetweenaninitialposition and anadverbial AC meaning. For medialposition the division is about 50/50, whereasfinalsentencepositionslightlyfavours the ‘additional context’ meanings. ACsthatoccurseparately are quite rare (92 instances) compared to the other types, buttheyoccur most oftenwith ‘additional context’ meanings.

Influence of coreference? Coreferencealsoclearly has (statistically significant) influenceon the AC The coreferencecategoriesfull coreference and especiallypart-wholecoreferenceoccur more oftenwhen the AC is used as a mereadditional context marker. This is to beexpectedsincethey (partially) repeat their anchor in the matrix and give additional information about it Non-coreference was expected to co-occurwithadverbialmeaningsbut has in factnodemonstrable effect on the adverbial/additional-contextdistinction The coreferencecategoriesdiscoursecoreference and inalienablepossessiontend to occurtogetherwithadverbialmeanings , the latterespeciallywithaccompanyingcircumstance

Conclusion

Conclusion • The use of ACs as mereadditional context marker has increased over time vis-à-vis the clearadverbialuses • Thisdevelopmentcouldbe labelled as highlystatistically significant • Italsoties in wellwith the intrinsicsemanticallyindeterminatecharacter of the construction and broadensits scope of use • Interestingly, Killie & Swan‘s (2009) study on the development of participial -ing clauses shows the opposite trend (from a quasi-coordinate -ing status to an integrated, subordinate status). • Augmentation does not affect the semanticinterpretation of ACs as far as the adverbial/additional context distinctiongoes

Conclusion • Sentenceposition, however, did turn out to be a statistically relevant factor as initialpositionties in withadverbialmeanings, whereasfinal and separate positionoccur more oftenwithmereadditional context meanings • Finally, coreferencealsocorrelateswith the AC semanticsbutnotcompletely in the waythat was expected • Ratherthandisfavouring the mereadditional context meanings ‘non-coreference’ had nodemonstrable effect on the adverbial/additional-contextdistinction • Whencoreference is present discoursecoreference and inalienablepossession relations favouradverbialmeanings, whereas full coreference and part-wholecoreferencefavourmereadditional context meanings

References Bauer, Brigitte. 2000. Archaic syntax in Indo-European. The spread of transitivity in Latin and French. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Berent, G.P. 1973. 'Absolute constructions as 'subordinate clauses''. In Corum, Smith, Stark and Weiser (eds.). 1973. You take the high node and I'll take the low node. Papers from the Comparative Syntax Festival. Chicago: CLS. 147-154. Haspelmath, Martin. 1995. 'The converb as a cross-linguistically valid category'. In: M. Haspelmath & E. König (eds.). 1995. Converbs in cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1-55. Killie, K. & T. Swan. 2009. 'The grammaticalization and subjectification of adverbial –ing clauses (converb clauses) in English'. ELL 13. 337-363. Kisbye, Torben. 1972. An historical outline of English syntax. Aarhus: Akademiskboghandel. Komen, J.H.M. 1994. Over de ontwikkeling van absolute constructies. Amsterdam: Buijten en Schipperhejn. Kortmann, Bernd. 1991. Free adjuncts and absolutes in English: problems of control and interpretation. London & New York: Routledge. Kortmann, Bernd. 1995. 'Adverbial participial clauses in English.' In Martin Haspelmath and EkkehardKönig. 1995.Converbs in cross- linguistic perspective. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 189-237. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English syntax. Oxford: Clarendon. Stump, G. T. 1985. The semantic variability of absolute constructions. Dordrecht: Reidel. Timofeeva, Olga. 2010. 'Non-finite constructions in Old English with special reference to syntactic borrowing from Latin.' In Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 80. by JuhaniHärmä, JarmoKorhonen and TerttuNevalainen. Jyväskylä: WS BookwellOy. van de Pol, Nikki. 2010. The absolute construction in Old and Middle English: a case of Latin influence? MA Thesis. Leuven van de Pol, Nikki. 2012. ‘Between copy and cognate: the origin of absolutes in Old and Middle English’. In Robbeets M., Johanson L. (Eds.).2012 The Origins of Bound Morphology. Leiden: Brill. Visser, FrederikusTheodorus. 1973. An historical syntax of the English language. Leiden: Brill.

References (corpora) BNC: The British National Corpus, later part 20th century, 100 m words. Department of Linguistics, University of Oxford. (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/corpus/index.xml? ID=intro). Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Diachronic and Dialectal, 750-1700, 1.5 m words. Department of English, University of Helsinki. Third edition, (http://icame.uib.no/ hc/). PPCEME: The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English, 1500-1710, 1.7 m words. Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania. CD-ROM, first edition, (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/). PPCMBE: The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Modern British English, 1700-1914, 1 m words. Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania. CD-ROM, first edition, (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/).

Structure of the talk