claudia claridge-multi-word verbs in early modern english. a corpus-based study (language and...

8/18/2019 Claudia CLARIDGE-MULTI-WORD VERBS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH. A Corpus-based Study (Language and Compu…

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1. Introduction

The decoupling of lexis and syntax leads to the creation of a rubbishdump that is called ‘idiom’, ‘phraseology’, ‘collocation’, and the like.(Sinclair 1991:104)

The following study will select some items of the linguistic ‘rubbish dump’evoked by Sinclair in the above quotation, namely multi-word verbs, and as-sign them a somewhat more suitable place, perhaps the corridor connectinglexis and syntax.

Multi-word verbs have in general received less than adequate

treatment so far. Linguists dealing with purely lexical matters, for instanceword-formation, have usually excluded them, ostensibly on the grounds that,seen from a formal perspective, they do not constitute ‘words’. But thatexclusion seems arbitrary insofar as they constitute lexemes and are formedon the basis of regular patterns. Furthermore, it may lead to embarrassingcontradictions, for instance the inclusion of phrasal nouns as opposed to theomission of phrasal verbs in works like Marchand’s (1969). Grammarians,for their part, have also mostly felt ill at ease with multi-word units; while

these do have an internal syntactic structure, it is burdened with exceptionsin many cases brought about by their lexeme status, so that a specialtreatment of them is made necessary. Most of all, multi-word verbs havehardly ever been treated as a group as such; rather, individual types areinserted here and there in grammars in many different sections (with thenotable exception of Quirk et al. 1985), which makes them very hard to find.In general descriptions of the language they exist on the fringes — as rubbishdumps are of course wont to do. However, they have found a more

comfortable shelter in their very own specialized dictionaries (such as Cowie& Mackin 1975), a kind of haven for ‘exotic’ verbs.

And yet multi-word verbs are neither exotic nor at the fringes of theEnglish language; rather, they are a part of the mainstream development. Toquote Sinclair (1991:68) once more: "the whole drift of the historical devel -opment of English has been towards the replacement of words with phrases(...)". I will therefore treat multi -word verbs in the present study as a group intheir own right, with an emphasis on their common features, examining their

development and behaviour in their authentic textual environments. The timeand the basis I have chosen for this consideration is the non-literary prose ofthe late Early Modern English (EModE) era — that is, precisely the time, theplace and the language important for the emergence of modern StandardEnglish.


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2 Introduction

Inevitably, the problem indicated in the first Sinclair quotation abovewill play an important role in this study. Both lexical, or rather semantic, andsyntactic matters are intertwined in the case of multi -word verbs, and bothwill require more or less equal attention. The connection is so intricate, Ifind, that it would be unwise, if not impossible, to attempt a unifiedtheoretical treatment with one of the two areas as the dominant basis.Accordingly, this will not be a theoretical piece of work, but one that willtake an empirical and eclectic approach; my foremost aim is the descriptionof what is there in late EModE. I will try to take account of the fact thatsyntax and semantics merge to some extent in multi-word verbs. However, Itake semantics to be the primary, and thus in some respect the moreimportant level. After all, people who know how they are going to saysomething, before they know what it is they are going to say, must beconsidered a rare species. Multi-word verbs certainly originate mainly forsemantic reasons — but these can be found just as well in the semanticproperties of syntactic structures as purely in those of the individual wordsmaking up the complex verbal unit.

In sum, my aims in this work are to throw some light on how syntaxand semantics combine and also interact with more ‘peripheral’ linguisticareas, such as considerations of style or register, to produce a greater varietyof expression in the English language. Moreover, this is foremost anhistorical study, and thus questions of the characteristics of multi -word verbsin EModE, their status within the language, and their development comparedto the situation found in Present-day English (PDE) will of course be majorconcerns. The frequencies found and their rise or decline over time will befurther important points, especially as two studies (Konishi 1958; Spasov1966 1) have pointed to a decline of phrasal verbs within the period to bestudied here. A new assessment of their results will be possible in the light ofthe more extensive data to be presented here (9,467 multi-word verbs, ofwhich 4,266 are phrasal verbs). In general, it will also be interesting to seewhether the frequencies of different kinds of multi-word verbs develop insimilar ways. Furthermore, I will pay attention to EModE speakers’awareness of and attitudes towards multi-word verbs, which might have a(positive or negative) influence on the development of these forms within thecontext of emerging prescriptivism and the standardization process. Thesematters will form the core of this work, comprising chapters 6 to 9.

The chapters preceding these four will set the historical scene andprovide the material required to put the empirical findings into their properperspective. Three aspects play a role here. The first concerns the data base,

1 For information on Spasov 1966, a book that proved impossible to obtain, cf.Bolinger 1971 and Hückel 1968/69.


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Introduction 3

the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts (1640-1740), and itshistorical context , as the nature of every corpus necessarily affects the resul-tant data (chapter 2). The second and third aspects relate to linguistictheories about multi-word verbs and my interpretation or application of them(chapters 3 and 4), and the whole history of multi-word verbs (chapter 5).


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2. The Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts

Empirical research in historical linguistics is no simple matter. On the onehand, historical linguistics has actually always been corpus-based, in beingorientated towards authentic language data preserved in old texts broughtdown to us — i.e. it is firmly based on empirical evidence. Of course, formost of the time there was no ‘corpus’ in the present strict sense of the word;real historical corpus linguistics only started with the publication of the

Helsinki Corpus in 1991. Since then, there have been more attempts tosupply historical linguistics with a firm basis of principled corpora, and the

Lampeter Corpus is a contribution to this ongoing process, filling one slotwith a collection of prose writings from 1640 to 1740.

On the other hand, it is faced with difficulties not experienced by re-searchers into the present-day language. There is the inapplicability ofmodern linguistic intuition to old data; this, together with the absence ofnative speakers of, e.g., EModE, complicates judgements about theacceptability, the appropriateness or, in general, the exact nature and statusof any instance found of a linguistic phenomenon. This fact either impedesor rules out completely the employment of some common methods insynchronic linguistics; this point will also have to be kept in mind for thechapters 3 and 4. Then, there is the finiteness of the data, both in anabsolute, overall sense — there are only so many texts that have come downto us — and with respect to instances for individual features. From this itfollows that there will necessarily be gaps in the existing data, with not allhistorically possible linguistic manifestations actually being documented.With regard to individual features this naturally means that one should be

careful not to build major arguments on the basis of apparent non-occurrence.

Any historical study will inevitably touch on the question of linguisticchange, and this also shows up some particular limitations of the availabledata. Samuels (1972:6) listed the following assumptions about linguisticchange, namely: (a) the majority of linguistic changes originate in the spokenlanguage, and may or may not ultimately spread to the written form, (b)fewer changes, usually of a different nature, arise in the written language,and may or may not be incorporated into the spoken language, and (c) the

written language exerts a conservative influence, by preventing or slowingdown the acceptance of many changes that come about in the spokenlanguage. The problems are obvious: we do not have any first-hand record ofthe spoken language for older periods of the language, but can only workwith approximations, such as court room transcripts, private letters and


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The Lampeter Corpus 5

dramatic dialogue in stage plays. We cannot assume that all features found in

the spoken medium are reflected in the written texts, and of those actuallyfound we do not know how long they have already been in existence beforeeventually turning up in writing. It is also not easy for us to assess which ofthe phenomena we find in our data would have been regarded as particularly,or even exclusively typical of the written form.

All these limitations on the data base for the historical study of theEnglish language, needless to say, apply to the present corpus as well.Moreover, as Atkins, Clear & Ostler (1992:5) have so rightly remarked ingeneral, any "corpus is inevitably biased in some respects", regardless of

whether it is diachronic or synchronic. What might be of particular relevancein the present case is the absence of the spoken dimension, in the light of thefact that the phenomenon under discussion, multi-word verbs, has often beenlabelled as colloquial in modern English.

The more one knows about a corpus, the easier it is to put dataderived from it into the proper perspective. Also, the characteristics of awritten language can only be adequately put into their proper perspectiveagainst the background of the interaction of the people using it and the usesof literacy in a given society (Traugott/Romaine 1985:14). Therefore thefollowing two sections will be devoted to a description of the LampeterCorpus and its historical setting.

2.1 General Characteristics of the Lampeter Corpus

In brief, the Lampeter Corpus is a collection of non-literary prose coveringthe 100-year period from 1640 to 1740. Its basic structure is determined byits sub-division into ten decades with twelve complete texts each, bringingthe whole corpus up to 120 texts and 1,172,102 words. 1 Every decade in turnhas an internal structure, containing two texts for each of the six domains ofRELIGION , POLITICS , ECONOMY , SCIENCE , LAW and MISCELLANEOUS 2. But letme now go through the corpus characteristics in more detail.

As to the time chosen, it of course represents an important period inthe standardization process of the English language, a time when the

1 The research for this study was carried out with a pre-publication form of the corpus- therefore all the word counts given here may vary somewhat from the final wordcounts of the published corpus.2 The codes for the individual texts chosen in the corpus and used throughout thisstudy to identify examples taken from the corpus derive from this basic structure. Thecodes consist of one of the abbreviations Rel, Pol, Ec, Sci, Law, and Msc for thedomains, plus the letter A or B (two texts for each domain) and the date of publication,thereby identifying the decade, e.g. PolA1646, SciB1684.


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6 The Lampeter Corpus

relatively inconspicuous selection and codification process was going on(Stein 1994:10), i.e. before codification became institutionalized in thegrammars and dictionaries of the 18th century. The Lampeter Corpus periodeither follows or coincides with important linguistic processes, in particularthe massive expansion of the lexicon leading to the Inkhorn Controversy(e.g. Nevalainen 1999; Baugh/Cable 1978) and the gradual regularisation ofsyntactic structure towards its modern standard (e.g. Rissanen 1999, Rydén1979). Furthermore, the span of one hundred years, while not very long initself, was considered sufficient for the purpose of studying linguisticchange, covering, as it does, three generations. The limitation in period

length was also thought sensible in order to provide somewhat greater depth(1,172,102 words for 100 years as opposed to, e.g., 551,000 3 words in the

Helsinki Corpus for the whole EModE period, 1500-1710) while still stayingwithin manageable overall proportions. It is thus possible to treat the corpuseither as a synchronic snap-shot of late EModE or as the basis for studyingdiachronic development within those 100 years. Both approaches will beapplied in this study. Figure 2.1 shows the spread of data (word size) overthe ten decades in the Lampeter Corpus. The exact extent of the chosen 100years was also influenced by the basic material that had been chosen. The

material basis was the Tract Collection stored in the Founders’ Library of theUniversity of Wales, Lampeter (hence the name of the corpus) 4, which up torelatively recently allowed instant access to the original prints in itspossession. Using these prints instead of later editions ensured the absoluteauthenticity of the material — a fact not to be underestimated 5 — and alsobrought to light texts that had not been edited or re-published since their firstpublication. The available material from which to choose in the collectionwas especially rich during in the period from 1640 to 1740, with the CivilWar in the 1640s causing a first peak of publication figures (and changingthe nature of public discourse for good (Feather 1988:50 f )), followed byeven higher outputs in the 1680s, 1700s and 1710s. 6

3 The figure is taken from Kytö’s manual to the Helsinki Corpus (1991:2).4 For further information on the Tract Collection, cf. Harris & James (1974).5 Editions, which are usually prepared by people from other fields of research, e.g.historians, are not necessarily very reliable with respect to purely linguistic matters.6 After 1640, the printing industry expanded considerably with the publication of c.1,000 titles a year in normal times, and up to c. 2,000 titles in moments of crisis orpublic hysteria, and also with increasing edition sizes (c.1,500 copies, but up to 3,000copies in some cases) (Cressy 1980:47).


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Figure 2.1 The decade structure of the Lampeter Corpus

The decision as to which kind of texts to include in the corpus wasalso guided by the material found in Lampeter. As the name Tract Collectionalready suggests it consists of tracts, though primarily actually of pamphlets.The main OED definition of the latter runs as follows:

A small treatise occupying fewer pages or sheets than would make abook, composed and ... (since c 1500) printed, and issued as aseparate work; always (at least in later use) unbound, with or withoutpaper covers.In a general sense used irrespective of subject (...), and in 17th c. in-cluding issues of single plays, romances, poems, novelettes, newspa-pers, news-letters, and other periodicals; still sometimes applied tochap-books, and the like; ...

As the OED shows, the meaning of tract ( s.v. tract n. 1) is in fact rather simi-

lar to this:

2. a. A book or written work treating of some particular topic; a trea-tise; a written or printed discourse or dissertation

1660102,233words

9%

165096,456 words

8%

1640126,099words11%

1670134,753words11%

1680150,457words13%

1690126,148words11%

1700101,714words

9%

1710

102,740words

9%

1720123,048words10%

1730108,454words

9%


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3. a. In later use: A short pamphlet on some religious, political, orother topic, suitable for distribution or for purposes of propaganda.[first quote for 3.a.: 1762]

This means that those two particular publication formats provide for a greatvariety of topics and text types or genres. 7 The subject matter of the pam-phlets are often questions of intense and also controversial current interest,such as the assessment and call for assassination of Cromwell, a discussionor rather refutation of witchcraft, or the economic rivalry with the Dutch. Onthe other hand, there are also very ‘sober’, less contentious publications,such as Hooke’s scientific treatise on the motion of the earth, a rather dry

treatment of the legal administration of land-ownership, or a lengthyexegetical tract on the biblical term ‘scandal’ — things one would not expectto appear in that format from the modern perspective. 8 As regards text types,there are such things as the inevitable sermons, political and legal speeches,court room transcripts, essays, lectures, ‘text-books’, satires etc. — as wellas texts that elude any hard and fast classification. The corpus is intended toreflect this varied situation as far as possible, though with two exceptions.Any kind of literary output to be found among those pamphlets (cf. the OED definition above) was excluded from the collection; this also goes for the —perhaps not always quite so literary — output of the well-known literaryfigures of that period, such as Dryden, Defoe or Swift. 9 The reasons behindthis are that (a) the literary production of that time is relatively easilyaccessible at any rate, and it is also already represented in corpora (e.g. theCentury of Prose Corpus), and (b) the Lampeter Corpus is instead supposedto represent the back-drop to this, the wide mainstream of written languageproduction, so to speak. Literature and great writers, after all, can only becorrectly assessed if seen in their own proper environment. 10 Newspaper

material was also excluded, as this will be available in the ZEN (Zürich

7 Grabes (1990:viii) used a more rest ricted definition than the one adopted here in hisstudy of the English pamphlet from 1521 to 1640, e.g. with rest rictions as to the length(up to 50 pages), the domain (only religion and politics) and the necessity of beingrelated to current affairs. In general, most people seem to think mainly of politics inconnection with pamphlets, cf. also for instance Ahrens (1991).8 For a list of all the texts contained in the corpus, see the corpus manual (forthc.). Cf.also for general interest the online catalogue of the Founders’ Library.9 This decision reflects a distinctly modern perspective, however, for, as Sharpe &Zwicker (1987:1-20) point out in their introduction, the 17th century distinguished theliterary and the fictitious much less clearly from other types of writing than we dotoday. Literature then could still be all things, and all things could be literature.10 Also, as Warner (1961:80) remarked with respect to the historical study of style, aminor writer can perhaps reveal the characteristics of his age better than a majorauthor.


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English Newspaper) and the Rostock Historical Newspaper corpora. To sum

up this point, the variety assembled in the corpus should also ensure adiversity of linguistic structures, for instance in lexical range through themany different topics and areas treated, but also with regard to syntacticstructures dominant or under-represented in one or the other genre orregister.

All the texts included in the corpus are complete texts, not samples ofarbitrarily cut-out smaller text chunks found in most other corpora. Theycontain everything from the titlepage to the Finis , that is, in addition to themain text, also dedications, addresses (usually to the reader), introductions

by publishers, and appendices with lists or other additional matter. It shouldnot be ignored that this approach has its disadvantages: the varying length ofindividual texts (from 3,436 words to 24,042 words) can make compilationand the final corpus seem rather erratic, it can introduce strong biases if notenough care is taken, and it certainly complicates linguistic statistics. How-ever, the great advantage of this method is that it makes text-linguistic andstylistic studies possible on a sensible level. In this way the corpus can farbetter reflect the uneven spread of linguistic features across the differentmanifestations of the language. The inclusion of complete texts was consid-ered especially necessary, as prose style – and this is taken to include overalltextual characteristics – seems to have undergone an extensive shift in theperiod in question here (cf. Jones 1951; Adolph 1668, 1981). It is also easierto identify the individual stylistic preferences of some authors and to makeallowances for them if one is working within the context of whole texts. Theinclusion of such material as dedications and addresses can also create inter-esting sociolinguistic perspectives.

The decade structure of the corpus, which looked like a very simplething in the beginning, proved to have its own particular problems as well.The frequency of later editions of texts that were found in the TractCollection made it necessary to decide on the fact that it was not primarilythe date of publication, but rather that of writing which was to count. Thismeans texts suitable for inclusion needed to have been written in the samedecade in which they were published, i.e. first editions as a rule. Latereditions were included in some cases, but only if the text expressly statedthat corrections, enlargements or the like had been carried out by the author .Only if the time line is kept ‘intact’ in that way is the study of linguistic

change over the one hundred corpus years at all feasible.The question of authorship has already been touched on above whendiscussing the exclusion of literary writers. A special feature of the period inquestion is the high instance of anonymous publications, which are to be un-derstood against the background of censorship laws (e.g. Feather 1988:85;


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Siebert 1965: passim ), or rather of eluding them, and the harsh punishment ofauthors found guilty of libel throughout most of the period. 11 Being such atypical characteristic of the press situation then, anonymous publications, aswell as those only identified by the putative initials of the author, were notcompletely excluded from the corpus; however, given the fact thatknowledge about the author can be (socio)-linguistically important, theywere kept to a minimum. Thus, most authors are known by name, andbackground information could be found about most of them, thoughunfortunately not all. Each author is represented only once in the wholecorpus. Texts originating with a corporate body (stated on the titlepage or the

Lampeter library catalogue), such as the Commissioners of the Navy, theEast India Company or the House of Lords, were also included; in contrast totruly anonymous publications their authorship is definitely restricted to acertain socio-economic circle of people.

Given the text-linguistic and to a lesser extent sociolinguisticconcerns connected with the compilation of the corpus, this was also to bereflected in the finished product with the help of SGML markup based on theTEI scheme, i.e. markup of individual features of the texts and a header with(background) information about the text and its author added to every text. I

will not go into detail here about these matters 12 , but the general aim of themarkup was to make the original layout of the texts as retrievable as possible— in so far as linguistically relevant — from the electronic version. 13

2.2 The Lampeter Corpus as a Mirror of 17th- and 18th-century England

It is in three respects especially that the Lampeter Corpus can be called amirror of the political, cultural and social conditions of England in the 17thand 18th centuries. The first is found in the areas of life and topics coveredby the texts, i.e. in general by the domain structure. The second isrepresented by the authors of the texts, their social spread, their education,their professions and their place in public life. The last has to do with thenature of public discourse at that time, that is on the one hand the situation

11 Cf. for instance the fate of the author of text LawB1649, who lost both his ears andwas branded on the cheeks (cf. the header information) as punishment for publishinglibellous texts.12 For a detailed explanation of the markup, cf. the corpus manual (forthc.). For somefurther remarks about the header information, see below in 2.2.13 Quotations from the corpus in this study will not contain any overt mark-up, and willreproduce the original typographical appearance of the textual instance only if neces-sary to the discussion.


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of ‘the press’ as such and on the other hand the characteristics of the

reception process and of the audience.The domains RELIGION , POLITICS , ECONOMY , SCIENCE , LAW andMISCELLANEOUS are supposed to reflect as widely as possible the scope oflife as found between 1640 and 1740. 14 And in English and British history,this was a period of enormous importance and far-reaching consequences forthe future of Great Britain. To deal adequately with that point would meanturning this study into a full-blown historical treatise which, needless to say,is completely out of place here. Thus I will restrict myself to those kind ofremarks of immediate relevance to the corpus material.

Religion and politics are intimately intertwined in the era in question,and this is reflected in the texts; many of them deal with both issues at onceor with one of them under the guise of the other. In contrast to the modernperspective this would not then have been perceived as problematic,contradictory or even remarkable at all. Of course this was bound to causeproblems for classification in the corpus; usually the predominant theme in a‘mixed’ text would determine under which heading it went (this applies alsoto texts in the other domains), or, in some cases, text type would helpdetermine the question: however political the content, a sermon will alwaysbe found under RELIGION in the corpus (e.g. RelA1696). Mixed texts ingeneral seem to have been not uncommon then, as thinking was obviouslyless compartmentalized than it was to become later. Therefore, there hasintentionally not been an attempt to generally avoid ‘mixed’ texts and optonly for ‘pure’ ones, as this would have distorted the historical situation. Anylinguistic approach taking domains/registers or text types as its basicparameter will have to take account of this fact.

The four issues that are important with respect to RELIGION are Angli-canism, Protestant Dissent, Catholicism (with all three always including theirrelationship to the political state) and the question of (passive) atheism. Thelast may seem surprising at first, but while this was a religious age, it mustnot be forgotten that it also was the Age of Reason. In fact, after theToleration Act of 1689 a significant number of people attended no form ofworship whatsoever, which was either a sign of outright atheism or simply of

14 A comparison of this classification, which was ‘imposed’ by the corpus compilers onthe Founders’ Library’s Tract Collection rather than statistically derived from it, withFeather’s (1986) subject analysis of British 18th-century publishing shows that it is notwide off the mark. Although an exact comparison is somewhat hampered by his verywide category ‘social sciences’, the only ones of his types which the Lampeter Corpus does not cover are literature (and this intentionally so), philosophy and languages (bothof which of are numerically minor categories). Thus the Lampeter Corpus can also beseen to reflect the publishing situation rather accurately.


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religious apathy (Spurr 1991:378) — perhaps rather the latter, as atheismcould still be the cause of sharp attacks against persons suspected of it, e.g.Hobbes (Hunter 1981). Nevertheless, there was, after the GloriousRevolution, a new atmosphere of liberalism, which fostered the growth of‘heresies’ such as Socianism or Deism — whose members were seen assuspect not only by the Established Church but also by the state, for therewas a certain connection with political radicalism (Kenyon 1977:83) as in thecase of John Toland, the author of PolA1720. The question ofatheism/religious apathy, while of interest in itself, is also important forestimating the possible impact of sermons on the population: not everybody

might have been exposed to them as often as Samuel Pepys (cf. his diary). Ingeneral it was assumed, however, that sermons reached many people and hada great influence, so that in each decade one of the RELIGION texts (RelA) isalways a sermon. After more than one hundred years of intense Protestantindoctrination and of reading the Bible in English a very far-reachingreligious influence – even if maybe more on the subconscious level – on themorals, the thinking and also the mode of expression of the people can beassumed (cf. Humphreys 1954:168). And of course the sheer amount ofpublications on religious themes can be taken as proof of considerable public

interest in the matter. 15 The real problem of the Anglican Church and the state at the time was

probably not fear of atheism but the danger perceived to come from the Dis-senting and Catholic camps. The English apprehension of Catholicismreached psychopathic dimensions (Mullet 1987:148), the best corpusexample of which is text RelA1679, the "sermon of the Antichrist", by whomnone other than the Pope is meant. Anti-Catholic sentiment also had theclearest and longest lasting political influence, in bringing about the GloriousRevolution and the Bill of Rights (1688/89) as well as the Act of Settlement(1701), the latter forbidding a Catholic monarch or consort. The eventsleading to the first of these are defended and justified in PolB1690, one ofwhose authors happened to be a future bishop of Gloucester. While anti-Catholicism could rely on widespread support within the population, theDissenters were, so to speak, the ‘enemies from within’. The execution ofCharles I and the Puritan Commonwealth that followed had left Englandtraumatized about the effects of radical Protestantism, a feeling that lastedwell into the 18th century (e.g. RelB1718; cf. Kenyon 1977:83). The ongoing

sermons before Parliament every January 30, on which RelB1730 is acomment, testify to this. Therefore, the first approach was to suppress and

15 Spufford (1981:130; 138) found a proportion of up to 31% of religious publicationsamong the chapbooks, dominating especially the cheap market - thus pointing to theiraccessibility also for the lower levels of society. Cf. also Hunter (1981:163).


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attack Dissent (cf. for instance RelB1667 with a discussion of this), which,

naturally, was resisted by the Dissenters (cf. an ‘answer’ written by WilliamPenn, RelB1674) and which was also not ultimately successful: theToleration Act of 1689 relieved the Dissenters of most restrictions. Whilethere seemed to be a numerical decline of Dissenters towards the end of ourperiod (Spurr 1991:387), their culture, e.g. in the shape of the progressiveDissenting academies, was an important contribution to English culture.

In spite of all external and also church-internal problems the AnglicanChurch of England was the dominant religious influence in most people’slife. It survived most conflicts relatively intact, such as that between jurors

and non-jurors (e.g. the author of RelB1701) or the Bangorian Controversy(RelB1718, RelB1721), and managed to stabilize itself in the 18th century,producing more calm and social balance within its ranks. The Anglicanclergy on the whole was rather open to new developments, even progressiveones, which meant, for instance, that bishops also busied themselves withother than religious (or political) matters, as for instance George Berkeley,Bishop of Cloyne, and mathematics (SciB1735).

With regard to POLITICS one can think principally of two possibletypes of texts, i.e. (i) texts on political theory, or (ii) treatments of andcomments on current political affairs. It is especially the latter kind that isfound in the Lampeter Corpus ; theoretical considerations enter into sometexts, such as PolB1659 (the definition of tyranny) or PolA1684 (thediscussion of monarchy as such), but they are always firmly anchored insome current state or event — in those two cases Cromwell’s rule and theExclusion Crisis respectively. It seems as if the publication format of apamphlet does not readily offer itself to the exposition of political theory.Thus the Lampeter POLITICS texts are closely mirroring the well-knowncourse of English history, e.g. the English Civil War and the Scottishinvolvement in it (PolA1646), government during the Commonwealth(PolA1659), the success of General Monck in preparing the ground for theRestoration (PolB1660), the Exclusion Crisis (PolA1684) leading up to theGlorious Revolution (PolB1690), the ongoing Jacobite threat to Englandafter this (PolA1702), the rise of party politics following their beginnings inthe 1680s (PolA1711), or — connected with the emergence of partydemocracy — the intricacies of elections (PolB1724). It was the existence ofelections, and thus of an electorate, which made political information in print

so especially important; one modern estimate puts the number of voters at c.340,000, that is one in every four men (Speck 1987:45 f ). But those who werenot entitled to vote also seem to have shared in a keen interest in politics,naturally particularly so in times of crisis (Mullet 1987:130). While the greatmajority of corpus texts deal with English affairs, there is also some interest


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in Ireland (PolA1720) and more notably for Scotland (PolB1689, PolA1699,PolB1706), reflecting both the greater importance of Scotland for Englandand also more self-confidence on the part of the Scots. Most texts are very‘insular’ in outlook, but foreign (PolA1672) and colonial (PolA1699) mattersoccur as well. However, those are much more common in the domainECONOMY — a telling sign of where English priorities lay in that age. ThePOLITICS texts as a whole usually exhibit a highly argumentative style ofwriting, and while this is also true of individual texts from other domainsthey do in that respect represent a more unified group.

The domain ECONOMY is not to be understood as ‘economics’, whose

beginning as an (academic) discipline can be traced to Adam Smith’s Wealthof Nations (1776), but it represents the great mass of writing on that topicexisting before, which is best characterized as ‘economic nationalism’. Therewas indeed a strong interconnection between politics and economic matters,with the latter being both a means and an aim in the political struggle withother nations. Most notably there was the economic rivalry with the Dutch(cf. EcA1652, EcB1700), which even resulted in three wars during thatperiod. As economic competition and activity in general was beginning totake place on a world-wide stage (a first ‘globalization’, so to speak), foreign

trade (e.g. EcA1720, EcB1731) and colonial economies (EcA1714,EcA1731) gained in importance — and the whole enterprise also becamemore risky (cf. for instance the case of lost ships in LawA1673). Risks, andalso greater costs, were more easily shared by groups of businessmen such asthe East India Company (EcB1641, EcB1676, EcB1681, EcA1697), foundedin 1600. Joint-stock companies like this one were a new development of the17th century and an important step towards the modern form of capitalism.But also for the individual merchant/entrepreneur and for the state as suchthe question of finance became ever more pressing, as trade became moreexpansive, and thus more expensive, and at the same time more competitive.State financing was of course as sensitive a topic then as it is nowadays andthe search was constantly on for relatively ‘harmless’ methods of raisingrevenue (EcB1660, EcB1696, EcB1717). The longest-lasting outcome of thatperiod’s successful struggle to come to terms with finances was the Bank ofEngland, founded in 1694 (EcA1705). 16 Of course, both foreign economicinvolvement and sober financing require a good foundation in the domesticeconomy (cf. EcA1681). Many people saw this very clearly, and while,

probably as a result of public interest, the press reflected outside affairs to a

16 Cf. for instance Graves & Silcock (1984:169-193) on the English financial system.According to them, by 1700 it was very well-developed and definitely superior to thoseof Continental Europe, so that texts from that period reflecting the evolution might beespecially interesting.


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much greater extent, developments at home were not to be neglected. In both

agriculture and manufacture increasing specialisation and sophisticationwere noticeable, often helped along by new inventions or techniques. Theprogressive farmer or entrepreneur would be expected to encourage‘improvement’ (e.g. EcB1653, cf. also SciA1653), and while all this did notamount to an Industrial Revolution yet, it clearly pointed in that direction.The great mass and variety of economic publications reveal clear popularinterest in the matter, and it seems that most people saw business assomething positive and worthwhile (Humphreys 1954:52 ff ). And theyobviously regarded it as something down-to-earth: all the texts are connected

to one or the other current event or problem, there is nothing abstract ortheoretical about them.

SCIENCE is perhaps the most exciting of all the domains, and that isbecause science in our modern sense of the word is only really emerging dur-ing this period. 17 What one finds in the 17th and 18th centuries, especiallythe former, is an overlapping of two scientific traditions, that of the oldacademic, tradition-bound approach and that of the new rational andempirical approach going under the name of ‘real (or natural, experimental)philosophy’. Corresponding to this, there was a clash and transformation ofworld-views, with somewhat confused views of metaphysical and non-mechanical causes gradually giving way to a clearly fact-based, rationalunderstanding of the visible world. However, even the new ‘real philosophy’did not right from the beginning conform to our narrow modern definition ofscience, it was rather "centring on natural and mechanical problems butextending through the life sciences towards medicine and through chemistryand applied mathematics towards technology" (Hunter 1981:32). As theterms ‘applied’ and ‘technology’ already hint at, there was a strong utilitarianbend present in the new approach, with the question of the usefulness ofscientific studies for the amelioration of human circumstances being givendue consideration. However, the most defining element of ‘real philosophy’was the methods used, which are all based on Baconian empiricism andwhich are still in use in science today. These are the collection of data, thecareful observation of real-world processes and events, the formulation ofhypotheses and the conducting of experiments. Probably the bestembodiment of this new science is the Royal Society founded in 1662. Thedomain SCIENCE is supposed to reflect this historical picture, and thus the

variety of texts it includes is only to be understood if one disregards thenarrow modern definition of the term. Astrology (SciA1644), for example,definitely represents the older approach, but nevertheless is still within the

17 Cf. Hunter (1981) for a good introduction into early modern science.


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confines of science in the 1640s (e.g. Clay 1984:185) — after all, evenNewton still dabbled in alchemy! Furthermore, the traditional kind of scienceis also represented by such textbook-like treatments of ‘secure’ knowledge asare found in SciB1652, SciB1666, or SciA1698. Among the representativesof the ‘real philosophy’ one finds texts that even today would be regarded asprototypical science (SciA1666, SciA1674, SciB1676, SciA1683, SciB1684,SciA1720, and SciB1722), with some well-known authors such as Hooke orBoyle. Authors of some other texts must have been well established withinthe circle of the virtuosi (as the new scientists were then called), even thoughtheir output might seem too applied or dubious to us (e.g. SciA1653,

SciB1696, SciA1709, SciB1714, SciA1730). Two texts (SciB1701,SciA1712) are special in so far as they are not ‘scientific’ as such, but ratherdeal with the status of scientific professions, something that is importantfrom the perspective of the increasing consolidation and closing-up of theseprofessions during the early modern era. What makes this domain ofadditional interest is the fact that scientific texts (together with sermons)have been suspected to be at the forefront of the stylistic changes takingplace at the time (Jones 1951; Adolph 1968).

Two principal kinds of texts combine to make up the domain LAW . On

the one hand, some texts belong there because of their text type, i.e. theyrepresent genres that only occur in the legal sphere such as statutes(LawA1643), petitions (LawB1661) or pleas (LawB1715). On the otherhand, there are those texts that deal with topics or describe events in thesphere of law; they are rather about law or legal questions than within law.Some of them give an insight into the administration of law as such(LawA1680) or, on the basis of this, put the case for certain improvements,as for instance LawA1653 and LawA1694 do. Others discuss specific legalcases which either had caused public dispute, such as LawB1688, LawB1697and LawB1704 (all of them concerned in some way with royal prerogative),or which were deemed to be of general public interest, e.g. LawA1703 orLawB1738, the latter one being concerned with the case of a printer and in-volving the question of freedom of the press. Law texts, as some of theabove already show, can also have a close affinity to politics, be it becausethey touch on the question of civil rights (LawB1649, LawA1732), orbecause they deal with treason cases (LawA1716, LawA1723, LawB1723).Trial or court-room transcripts, such as LawA1668 and LawB1678, but also

LawA1716, form a class of their own between those two types and provide amost vivid picture not only of the workings of the legal system but also ofeveryday life in that period. In so far as there is some actual ‘speech’,however filtered through writing, found in them, they are especiallyinteresting for register or stylistic studies. What is also intriguing about the


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domain LAW in general is the fact that on the one hand it reflects something

so typically English as the Common law system and on the other hand it wasone of the last spheres of public life to officially give up the use of a foreignlanguage with the abolition of ‘Law French’ in 1732.

While MISCELLANEOUS might not sound like a very useful name for adomain, it was thought necessary in order to enable the inclusion of a widevariety of texts evidently typical of the time and the contemporary presswhich fit none of the other categories and are also too varied as a group to begiven a more descriptive name. Quite a few of these texts are what onewould find in the popular press nowadays. Among those there are topics

such as natural catastrophes (MscA1669), the supernatural (MscB1666,MscA1696, MscA1712), frauds and swindlers (MscB1692), ‘adventurestory’ (MscA1685), as well as biographies of people of interest (MscB1676,MscB1729, MscB1739). Other texts would fall rather under the headings ofmanuals or practical advice, be it more in the social sphere (MscA1676,MscB1700) or in garden and household (MscB1718, MscA1722,MscA1730), the latter combining its advice with a sales advert. Some textsview matters with political implications from a different, sometimes private,angle, for example the Civil War from the point of view of a militia man(MscA1643), ship-building and its effects on the strength of the English navy(MscB1646), or an important contractor on the rebuilding of London(MscB1685). Satire, which is so typical of the era, is also found (MscA1650,perhaps also MscB1700), as well as a self-reflective treatise on the freedomof the press (MscA1704).

While the corpus thus allows illuminating insights into many aspectsof life in early modern England, the domain structure and the variety of texttypes 18 present also make it possible to create sub-corpora in order to studydifferent registers 19 , styles, or formality levels, for instance. The followingpie chart shows the absolute (number of words) and relative sizes(percentage of corpus) of these domain sub-corpora:

18 The text headers will contain information on what the text calls itself, e.g. essay,treatise, speech etc. But of course not every text contains a self-description of thatkind, in which case the slot will remain empty. An additional text classification (cf.Schmied/Claridge 1997 for an early attempt) on our, the compilers’, part was consid-ered too subjective in nature and thus dispensed with.19 As the Lampeter Corpus period is a t ime of changing social conditions and emerginginstitutions, registers should not be seen as monolithic blocks, however. Fairclough’s(1988) concept of multi-registerial texts might be interesting here.


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Figure 2.2 : The domains of the Lampeter Corpus

The second view into early modern England mentioned above is pro-vided by the authors of the corpus texts and the information about them con-tained in the text headers. Of course, this is not always the case, definitelynot for anonymous texts (16 in all) and those with ‘corporate’ authors (4),but there are also some authors, though known by name, about whomnothing could be found out (11). However, in all other cases it was attemptedto give as much of the following information as possible: the date and placeof birth, sex, age, places of residence up to the time of writing the text,educational history, occupation(s), as well as the socio-economic status ofthe writer and of his/her father or mother, occasionally supplemented by afurther biographical note (such as “Royalist affiliations” for James Howell[PolA1648]). The following is an example taken from the header of textSciA1674:

Robert Hooke

1635 Freshwater (Isle ofWight)Freshwater; Oxford; London; Oxford; Lon-don

Science222,395words20%

Religion202,802words

17%

Politics204,839words17%

Miscellaneous164,344words14%

Law204,645words17%

Economy173,077words15%


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Westminster-School; Christ Church, Oxford: MA(1663)secretary; Gresham Professor of geometry;surveyor of London; inventor; professor of Mechanics to the RoyalSociety; perpetual curator of experiments to the Royal Society

professions (academic)professions(clergy)

From a sociolinguistic perspective it is the classification according to

socio-economic status that is probably of most relevance. Of course, it isdifficult to re-create a sociological profile of a past society and the results ofsuch attempts always have to be treated with some caution. Nevertheless, thefollowing model, which is based on the research of such historians asHolderness (1976), Wrightson (1982, 1986), Clay (1984), Houston (1992),and Coward (1994), seems to present a fair picture of society at the time ofthe Lampeter Corpus .

I. Nobility · Aristocracy / Peerage (dukes, earls, marquises, viscounts, barons)· Gentry (baronets, knights, esquires, gentlemen)· Archbishops & Bishops

II. Landed and Professional Classes· Officers· Government Officials· Clergy·

Lawyers· Medical Profession· Merchants and Manufacturers· Yeomanry (rural)

III. The "middling sort"· Freemen (masters, craftsmen, tradesmen)· Husbandmen / Craftsmen / Tradesmen (rural)

IV. Lower ranks· Wage-earners (journeymen, apprentices, servants etc.)· Cottagers / Craftsmen / Tradesmen / Labourers (rural)

V. The Poor


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Factors that play a role in determining social status include birth, title,wealth and the nature of that wealth, life-style, occupation, form of land ten-ure, tenure of positions of authority and legal status, not all of which are ofequal weight, however (Wrightson 1982:22). The model should not be seenas static; there were of course shifts, even if only small, in the relationshipbetween social groups during the 100 years covered here, and there was alsothe not negligible fact of individual social mobility (Wrightson 1986:180;187).

Naturally, not all members of society as found in this model are rele-

vant with regard to authorship because of the uneven spread of literacy(especially the ability to write) through society (Spufford 1981:21 ff ) and alsobecause access to the printing presses would have been uneven for thedifferent social classes. 20 Thus the two lowest levels in the above model canusually be disregarded in the question of (direct) authorship and the middlingsort, so to speak, will also be under-represented in that respect. Most authorswill invariably come from the two top levels, which from a sociolinguisticpoint of view is rather deplorable. However, at least the second level and theexistence of ‘social risers’ (i.e. higher social level than the father) allow for

some possibly interesting variation. Another point which is somewhatdisappointing is the rarity of female authors, only two in the whole LampeterCorpus (both in the domain RELIGION ); probably it was difficult for womento get access to the printing presses. 21 It is noteworthy that one of thecorpus’s female authors had inherited a print shop from her husband, whichenabled her to print her material herself. The corpus thus represents thedifferent possibilities of social and cultural participation for differentmembers of society.

Looking through the corpus authors one thus finds the followingsocial spread: in the first and highest class there are 22 authors in all, themajority (11) of them belonging to the aristocracy, while six are members ofthe gentry and five are found in the ranks of the higher clergy. Most authors,however, are found in the second social class, representing among them allthe possible professions but not the yeomanry (which is only found in thefather generation of some authors). Of the 59 people in this group, the

20 However, Smith (1994:6; 23) remarks that authorship could reach rather far downthe social scale (especially during the Commonwealth), that the capacity to put some-thing into print grew from the 1640s onwards and that in general new kinds of authorsemerged in England in the 17th century.21 I.e. those that could write at all. In fact, nearly 90% of all women in 17th-centuryEngland could not even write their names (Cressy 1980:41). However, among Londonwomen illiteracy declined rather dramatically down to 44% by 1720 (ibid. 147).


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majority of 24 belong to the clergy. The urban part of the third, ‘middling’

group is present in the corpus with 15 authors. About 14 authors could becharacterized as ‘social risers’, as they are somewhat higher up in the socialranking than their fathers were. The opposite process is also found, usuallyas a drop from the first into the second class, which is not surprising asyounger sons of the gentry, and to a lesser extent also of the aristocracy, whodid not inherit had to find another source of income. An example, thoughprobably less out of need than out of inclination, is Boyle (SciB1684), whowas born into the aristocracy, but then became a scientist. Together with thevariety regarding occupations and the various educational courses taken by

the authors, the existing social spread also makes it possible to approach the Lampeter Corpus from a sociolinguistic point of view.

What distinguishes the Lampeter Corpus authors from most of theircolleagues in PDE corpora is the nature and status of their writing. In the17th and, to a lesser extent, the early 18th centuries "writing was not yetregarded as a profession, but rather as a form of civilised communication"(Bonham-Carter 1978:12). Although there were authors who wrote oncommission for the booksellers and for money (Feather 1988:103 f ), for themajority of early modern authors writing was neither their sole occupationnor even the most prominent part of their life or profession. Eisenstein(1983:100) calls these authors (until the 18th century) "quasi-amateurs". It isprobably not saying too much if one expects this to have an influence ontheir use of the language, e.g. the possible absence of professional groupstyles.

The third thing the Lampeter Corpus mirrors is the nature of publicdiscourse at that time and thus, indirectly, the audience of the texts found inthe corpus. That public discourse and public opinion were taken seriouslythen and its machinations and outcome consciously exploited by, e.g.,politicians is expressly stated by one of the highly contentious texts of the

Lampeter Corpus (PolB1730, my italics):

However the whole Stream of their Malice, for some Time, flowedonly in this Channel, to vilify this Minister’s Name, to arraign hisConduct, depreciate his Services, blacken his Character, and weakenhis Credit, both with his Prince and his Fellow-Subjects; all Handswere imployed, and all Engines set at Work; Manuscripts were

circulated, the Press loaded, Coffee-House Talkers, Table-Wits, and Bottle-Companions had their Instructions given them ; and thegrossest Falshoods were inculcated in the grossest Terms; ... (p.11)The Transition was easy from Ministers to Princes; and the sameMethods that had served to defame the one, were now imployed to


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depreciate the other. The whole Artillery of Pamphleteers, Ballad-mongers, and Libellers was drawn out; ... (p.17)

All the means then possible were used, and while the author of that text men-tions them accusingly, he himself is also using the most effective of thosemeans, the pamphlet, to react to them. Pamphlet publications could be moreeffective than, for instance, the newspapers (one of which, The Craftsman ,PolB1730 is directed against), because (a) they could treat of their topicsmore exhaustively if they wanted, and more importantly (b) because theycould be less easily traced and suppressed as they did not emanate regularlyfrom one rather constant source.

As "the pamphlet was (...) the principle [sic] means of reaching amass audience" (Feather 1986:38), it can be assumed that most of theauthors, especially those writing about matters of great interest and/orcontention, wrote with the widest possible audience in mind. Pamphletsusually want to influence and sway public opinion, and this they can only doif they make themselves clearly understood. Gordon (1966:9) states that

even when print became the normal means of dissemination, muchprose remained oral in conception. The drama, the sermon, and the

pamphlet (...) perpetuate in print what was first conceived in terms ofthe spoken word.

It can therefore further be assumed that most pamphlets are not written inany kind of complicated or intricate style, but rather at a neutral level. Toassume a more ‘colloquial’ level, in spite of Gordon’s comment, would be toexpect too much, as the stylistic awareness of the age was too well developedfor that; one of the Lampeter authors even felt it necessary to apologize forthe — in his opinion — inadequately humble style of his work. 22 How awareauthors were of their readers is also shown by the frequency of addresses tothe reader being attached to their main work. 23

The natural place of pamphlets was the streets and especiallyLondon’s coffee-house scene (Sommerville 1996:163), as also mentioned inthe corpus quotes above. While pamphlets, as well as everything else, were

22 "... and tho’ possibly my Stile may appear rough and unpolish’d, which the courteousReader I hope will a little excuse, ..." (MscA1685, p. 26). But a rather desperate state-ment by Richard Baxter ( Reliquiae Baxterianae , 1696), one of the authors ofMscB1658, contains an implicit admission that the style of most writers is probably stilltoo complicated: "Indeed, the more I have to do with the ignorant sort of people themore I find that we cannot possibly speak too plainly to them. If we do not speak tothem in their own vulgar dialect, they understand us not." (quoted in Gordon1966:125 f ).23 Twenty texts contain addresses to the reader; additionally, there are fourteen ad-dresses to specific persons or groups of people.


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in their great majority printed in London (e.g. Feather 1988: 67), they also

reached the rest of the country, partly through pedlars but also through anetwork of booksellers (Spufford 1981; Alston 1981; Feather 1988:41).Nevertheless, the London readership was the most important one (Smith1994:26); London was not only by far the biggest city in the country (with575,000 inhabitants (c. 10-12%) from a whole population (England/Wales)of c. 5-5.5 million in about 1700) 24, but also the place where all importantdecisions were taken and thus where these could be influenced by pressurefrom below (cf. for instance the Saccheverell affair and the riots connectedwith it, beginning in 1709). The c. 500 coffee-houses in London were the

places where people congregated not only to drink coffee, but to readliterature, pamphlets or newspapers and to discuss their content (Humphreys1954:18; Feather 1988:54). Or they did not even have to read them: earlyModern England was still to a considerable extent an oral-based culture or atleast one with a considerable oral residue (cf. Ong 1982). People would stillread things aloud for others to share in the information (cf. Cressy 1980:14;Feather 1988:94 and Aries/Chartier 1991:150 ff , also the illustration p. 130).Sommerville (1996:125) quotes Charles Leslie as saying that even theilliterate

will Gather together about one that can Read, and Listen to an Obser-vator or Review (as I have seen them in the Streets) where all thePrinciples of Rebellion are Instilled into them, and they are Taught ...to Banter Religion. 25

Authors were aware of these practices, and therefore it is not completelyinappropriate to assume that they not only wrote for readers, but also forlisteners.

Through the practice of reading aloud, illiterate and semi-literate peo-

ple also gained access to the world of pamphlets, thereby increasing the audi-ence. Though the extent of literacy in societies of the past is extremely hardto measure (Schofield 1981), and estimates in the extant literature differ (e.g.Cressy 1980, Spufford 1981), there is reason to believe that literacy, in par-

24 Figures from Wrightson (1982:128), Borsay (1987:197) and Clay (1984:2; 170).Urbanization, i.e. the proportion of the nation living in towns, was expanding; by 1700probably a quarter of the population of England and Wales was urban (cf. also the mapin Clay 1984:168). London was even a real metropolis, definitely the biggest city inWestern Europe and one of the three to four largest in the world (Borsay 1987:200).An increasing urban population also meant more (active) participants in the public dis-course of the time, among other things because literacy was probably more widespreadin towns than in rural areas (Cressy 1980:72).25 Source given by Sommerville: Rehearsal , Preface to the first collected volume pub-lished in 1708.


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ticular the ability to read (both the easier task and the one taught first inschools (e.g. Schofield 1981:460), was more common than often thought andthat it even trickled down to the lower reaches of society (e.g. Spufford1981) — although there was of course a clear social stratification in literacylevels. Furthermore, illiteracy certainly declined during the early modernperiod, as can be seen in the following graph taken from Cressy (1980:177):

Figure 2.3 : The decline of illiteracy in early modern England(reproduced from Cressy 1980:177)

One important aspect for the amount or increase of literacy is certainly relig-ion: more people in Protestant cultures, such as the British one, have beenshown to possess books at all (an indication of literacy) and also in greaternumbers than their contemporaries in Catholic environments (Aries/Chartier1991:134 ff ). In addition, however, print as such was probably not the leastfactor in bringing about an increase in literacy by encouraging people indaily or at least weekly contact with printed matter (an amount of exposurenot possible in manuscript cultures!) to learn to read and write (Eisenstein1985:21).

While the wide audience thus must have had some checking influenceon ‘high-flying’ style in pamphlets, there will also have been a reverse influ-ence on the audience by the language actually used in the pamphlets. Seenpsychologically, written , more specifically printed language has an inherentauthority never attained by the spoken word — and in an age that (a) exhibits

a rather high awareness of linguistic matters, especially of the status of theEnglish language, and (b) gradually sets out on the course of standardizingthe language, the role played by the language of public discourse is by nomeans negligible. Stein (1994:14) has pointed out that "it could well beargued that inherent in the written printed language of the time there was a


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codifying effect per se " and that it was already the case "long before (with

e.g. Johnson and Lowth) a prescriptivism based on codification proper setin", which thus gives crucial importance to the 17th century in this respect.Printed matter not only disseminated specific linguistic features among itswide audience, but also influenced the future perception of language as such(cf. Bex 1996:32). It is thus especially the ‘mainstream’ features of English,those that are part of the drift (cf. chap.3) and those that are associated withneutral to moderately conversational styles — like the analytic verb formsexamined here — which will be illuminated by a closer look at these kinds ofwriting.


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3. Multi-word Verbs as a Group

3.1 An Attempt at a Definition

The focus here will be on the question of what can count as a verb in thecontext of a sentence. Or, how are expressions such as the underlined ones inthe following sentences, taken at random from the BNC , to be treated in thisrespect?

(1) A small party may get a substantial number of votes, but if they fallshort of the quota it will not normally win a seat. ( BNC EW4 700)

(2) You work with your dog so you have to look after him very carefully.( BNC A17 1502)

(3a) She has made a choice not only of person, but of class. ( BNC AN42928)

(3b) What you may have to take into consideration is the well-being ofcompanies or individuals you are dependent on for your future. ( BNC CBC 4727)

(4) Above all, though, glasnost and greater contact with the West havebrought about a fait accompli. ( BNC A2X 432)

(5) We all fell in with what you wanted, we all bent over backwards to dowhat you wanted. ( BNC FAB 3392)

What they all have in common is that (a) they consist of more than oneword 1, i.e. are analytic constructions, and (b) nevertheless represent asemantic unity that is characteris tic of a single word or lexical unit. Whilesome elements (especially prepositions and particles) are ‘easier’ tointegrate into the verb phrase, others, such as a choice (3a) have not found as

ready an acceptance — after all they are susceptible to a traditional in-terpretation as a direct object. Here, all the elements in the above exampleswill be seen as being part of the verb. In all other respects, however, theyclearly differ from each other, most notably in their internal make-up, butalso — as a consequence — in their syntactic behaviour. Moreover, theirfrequencies and thus their impact on the structure of English v ary greatly,with the type found in (4) certainly being the most prominent one.Nevertheless, their common characteristics justify combining them into one

larger group for the purpose of investigation (cf. 3.4). In the history of

1 The notion of ‘word’ will throughout the study be used in an everyday, quasi pre-theoretical way (cf. Bauer’s discussion (1983:7-10)), as a more theoretical definition isnot necessary for the problem in hand.


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Multi-word Verbs as a Group 27

linguistics, these structures were mostly treated neither as a group nor in asystematic way. Therefore statements concerning them in older generaldescriptions of English — which I will briefly look at now — are usuallyscattered all over the works in question.

Kruisinga’s (1925:II/3,72) definition of a compound, which accordingto him is "a combination of two or more words forming a semantic unitwhich is not identical with the combined meanings of its elements", is ofinterest here, as one of the examples he gives for such compounds, payattention , fits in with (3). In other places he explicitly mentions "compoundverbs" (used for a combination of (2) and (4), (ibid. II/1, 113 ff ) and"separable compounds" (reminiscent of German ‘separable verbs’),illustrated among others by cases like (4) (ibid. II/1, 65). Behind theseseparable compounds may lie his distinction between "distance compounds",which he exemplifies by for my brother’s sake , and "contact-compounds"such as schoolmaster (II/3,73). "Semi-compounds" is another of his terms,used for combinations like laugh at, think fit, take care of that are on the onehand "closely connected in meaning", but on the other are "not completelyisolated" (II/3, 76). Kruisinga’s usage of the word ‘compound’ clearly showsthat he is prepared to give word status to such combinations as in (1)-(5)above and that his main reason for doing so is their semantic cohesion.

Poutsma (1926:25,118) employs the term "group-verb" for cases inwhich there is a close link between a verb and its complemen t and in which"the component parts form no real separate subjects of thought", i.e. just likeKruisinga his motivation for recognising a class of compound verbs issemantic. Jespersen (1928:III,294) carefully states that some phrases, hisexamples being taken from the classes of (2) and (3) above, "are now felt aswholes". In another place (V,6) he explicitly calls them "composite verbalexpressions" and analyses them as a whole as W in his SWO-structures.Thus he draws syntactic consequences from his observation. Two differentdescriptions are employed by Curme (1931:572 f ), "transitive compoundverbs" for such types as (2) and (3), and "group words" for combinations like(4). This latter term is used to distinguish some groups of words from othersyntactically similar ones on the grounds that they exhibit the "oneness ofmeaning" otherwise only found in a word.

It is clear from the statements and opinions just quoted that the prob -lem posed by the structures in (1) to (5) and similar ones has received so metreatment, albeit mostly rather haphazardly and unsystematically in earlystudies. Recently, linguistic treatments of this point have been moresystematic and intensive, as chapters 3 and 4 will show. Nevertheless, withthe exception of Quirk et al. (1985), they have hardly been comprehensivewith respect to multi-word verbs as a group. Thus, the attempt to deal with


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28 Multi-word Verbs as a Group

all kinds of multi-word verbs in a more comprehensive, theoretical andempirical manner seems both necessary and appropriate. This is what thepresent work tries to do.

I will take Quirk et al.’s (1985:1150) definition of a multi-word verbas a "unit which behaves to some extent either lexically or syntactically as asingle verb" as a starting point. "To some extent" is symptomatic ofeverything having to do with multi-word verbs, as there are no clear-cutboundaries, only a cline — and the cut-off points will always have to remainbased more or less on the subjective feeling of the linguist dealing with theproblem. I do not, therefore, propose to offer a hard and fast theory of theproblem, but simply an account of the matter which seems plausible to me.

Another boundary that multi-word verbs touch or rather straddle is the onebetween syntax and semantics, cf. "either lexically or syntactically" in thequotation above. Some of the complexes one intuitively classifies as multi-word verbs will fulfil lexical/semantic criteria, others syntactic criteria, whilea third group will satisfy criteria in both spheres (cf. alsoBurgschmidt/Perkins 1985). Fulfilment of all possible criteria in each casecannot reasonably be expected in this context, in my opinion. I intend to usesurface structure (cf. also Denison 1985b:189) and semantics (similar to

many of the linguists cited above) most of all in my approach to the topic."As language is used, meaning is both the beginning and the end point"(Dixon 1992:5), and syntax is ‘only’ the means of realizing the intendedmeaning.

The following then is an attempt at a definition. First of all, a multi -word verb is a group consisting of two or more words, regardless of whetherthey form an uninterrupted sequence or are spread discontinuously across theclause. Secondly, this group is made up of whatever in the context of a

clause or sentence transports the concept of, or information about, the‘process’ itself (cf. Halliday 1985:102), the ‘verbal’ meaning. The groupshould thus exhibit what Cruse (1986:77) terms "the union of a lexical formand a single sense". Here I am interested in how verbal semantic s may beenriched, changed or even taken over by additional elements. Notice,however, that not all its elements have to make a semantic contribution to theoverall meaning; there can be empty or operator elements. Thirdly, the itemsmaking up such a multi-word verb do not necessarily all belong to the

traditional word class verb; possible candidates are nouns, adjectives,adverbs, and prepositions. It is clear, however, that at least one real verbmust be present to fulfil the necessary grammatical functions associated witha verb in a clause. Lastly, the internal structure of multi-word verbcombinations is usually such that an alternative syntactic analysis (perhapsalso connected with an alternative meaning) of them and their connection


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with the rest of the clause is perfectly possible (cf. Dixon 1982:39), e.g. theanalysis as a verb-direct object sequence ( make a choice in (3a) above) or asverb + prepositional phrase instead of as a lexical multi-word verb (cf. Quirket al.’s (1985:1150) two analyses of dispose of N). While the first, third andfourth points refer to (surface) form, the second one is about meaning, i.e.function, which is the most important element of the definition. Anadditional point is stability over time, the habitual nature of t he combination(Gläser 1986:16;19; Burgschmidt/Perkins 1985:27). This is cer tainlyimportant, but it can only be verified empirically with otherwise pre-definedmulti-word verbs.

Cruse’s notion of semantic constituents (1986:23-32), which are form-plus-meaning complexes (cf. the elements of the above definition), is, Ithink, of interest here. He himself uses the concept to award the status ofminimal lexical units to idioms and — with some hesitation — to deadmetaphors, but not to collocations (ibid. 37-45). According to this notion,multi-word verbs could only be considered lexical units if they represent oneminimal semantic constituent. To illustrate this with Cruse’s examples, onthe mat in The cat sat on the mat is a semantic constituent of the wholesentence which, however, consists of the further minimal semanticconstituents on, the , and mat. Cook —’s goose , on the other hand, in This willcook Arthur’s goose cannot be divided into the constituents cook, ’s, goose ,but is itself already a minimal semantic constituent. Analysing the relevantpart of (6) into its semantic constituents, we get she - ... - looked - into herbig, brown eyes - ..., which can be tested by putting the constituent (here thelast of the three) into another sentential context, to which it should make anidentical semantic contribution, cf. The doctor put the eyedrops into her big,brown eyes.

(6) She held Lizzie’s paw, looked into her big, brown eyes, wishing Lizziecould live forever. ( BNC A17 1097)

The constituent in question here separates further into the minimal semanticconstituents into — herbig — brown — eyes, which could be individuallycontrasted with at — his — bright — blue — eyes, for example; accordingto this theory the exchanging of blue for brown should yield parallel changesof meaning in different sentences. The substitutions made change themeaning of the whole sentence, but do not alter the basic meanings of the

other individual constituents, e.g. whether there is the preposition at or into does not have any effect on she, look, eyes etc. as such.

An analysis of (7), however, yields a different picture: ... — a Houseof Commons committee — had looked into — the possibility — ....., all ofthem further divisible (within limits, cf. House of Commons ).


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(7) Even as early as 1840 a House of Commons committee had lookedinto the possibility of connecting Dover with Calais. ( BNC A19 1780)

But looked into here is not further divisible. If one substitutes, e.g., stare forlook , or at for into in sentences (6) and (7), they will not undergo parallelchanges of meaning (recurrent semantic contrast), which would be necessaryto prove that look is a minimal semantic constituent in both. Besides, a sub-stitution with at would also change the meaning of look — which is anindication of multi-word verb status as the substitution of one part of a multi -word unit changes the overall meaning of the unit (cf. Zgusta 1967:579). Thesurface sequence looked into makes a different semantic contribution to eachof the sentences. The semantic contribution of the form to (7) is replicated inThe engineers looked into the problem , where a substitution with, say,ignore or discuss also produces an identical semantic contrast. The fact thatignore could also substitute for look into in (6), and that it is very hard todescribe what identical semantic contrasts or contributions are, points to thelimitations of this procedure. It is neither as straightforward, nor as preciseand non-circular, i.e. non-intuitive, as Cruse makes it out to be. Nevertheless,it is a more varied and flexible test than the traditional one of substitutionwith a simplex synonym — especially as such a substitution is often

impossible, as for example in (8) and (9)2

.(8) No, a childminder cannot normally take care of a sick child .... ( BNC

A0J 307)(9) I sacrifice everything for cricket, never stop out late and always take

the greatest care of myself. ( BNC A6Y 183)

Intuitively, take care of in both sentences is a lexical unit with the same oralmost identical meaning of "restoring/maintaining health". But the substitu-tion test will only work indirectly, i.e. for all the other elements of the sen -tence, because the discontinuous, modified group in (9) makes it impossibleto substitute another unit and still leave the syntactical structure intact. Thisseems to be the way Cruse (1986:37) himself proceeds in the case of cook — ’s goose (cf. above). Another problem is that one could, e.g., substitutenotice for care (but cf. Zgusta 1967 referred to above), pointing towards thedivisibility of take care of into the minimal semantic constituents take , care ,and of . The substitution results can thus be contradictory in the case ofindividual combinations. In my opinion, given the varied syntactical natureof multi-word verbs, the ‘outwards-in’ procedure — substitution-testing

2 Discarding both look after and care for, as they are themselves multi-wordcomplexes.


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everything in the sentence until only the suspected complex lexical unitremains left — is a valid testing method.

The approach outlined above admittedly makes multi-word verbs arather open, and therefore somewhat unwieldy, class. However, the more onesubdivides this general class and defines those subsections (cf. chap.4), theless open the approach becomes, although quite a few fuzzy edges willalways remain.

Before continuing with describing several possibilities of subdivisionand proposing the scheme to be employed here, a few more words about theterm used here are in order. As mentioned above, "multi-word verb" hasbeen taken over from Quirk et al. (1985), basically because it is a very non-committal cover term that can serve for a whole variety of combinations.Ultimately, however, these forms are very much context-, i.e. sentence- orclause-bound. In many respects, therefore, the label multi-word predicatemight be more appropriate, but this would miss the fact that not a few of thestructures in question are lexicalized. Thus, the term multi-word verb, whichI will continue using, should be taken with the caveat pointed out here.

3.2 Classification Schemes for Multi-word Verbs

All individual types of multi-word verbs have received some sort oftreatment in the literature, and while most of this has been done in isolation,there have nevertheless been some attempts to draw up (more or less)complete lists of possible types and to classify them. 3

Mitchell (1958)

A classic in this area is the classification given by Mitchell (1958:106), even

though it deals only with a part of all the possible combinations. It has theadvantage of great clarity and simplicity. His whole system is based onbinary contrasts, as is visible in the following scheme:

non-prepositional ( to take ) (1)non-phrasal

prepositional ( to take to ) (2)

non-prepositional ( to put up ) (3)

phrasal prepositional ( to put up with ) (4)

3 The examples used in section 3.2. are those used by the quoted authors themselves.


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With (1) representing the simplex verb, the classification deals with threetypes of multi-word verbs, namely prepositional verbs (2), phrasal verbs (3)and phrasal-prepositional verbs (4), where phrasal means the inclusion of anadverbial component. While the term phrasal verb had been introduced longbefore that time (Smith 1925:172), Mitchell’s scheme certainly contributed alot to the establishment of the now common terms for the three major andmost common types of multi-word verbs at least.

Quirk et al. (1985)

The most accessible attempt at classification is probably to be found in Quirket al. (1985:1150-1168). A major division is made into principal types and

"other multi-word verb constructions", which are obviously regarded as ofminor importance. Inside the principal types a further division selects onlyidiomatic types as multi-word verbs proper, whereas the non-idiomatic, i.e.literal, types (e.g. come in, run away with ) are treated as "free combinations"and thus placed outside the class concerned. The principal types, which arebased on the formula "verb ± direct object ± adverb ± preposition", consistof the six combinations Phrasal Verb (verb + adverb) Types I ( crop up ) andII ( turn N down ), Prepositional Verb (verb + preposition) Types I ( come

across N, e.g., a problem) and II ( take N for N, e.g., a fool) and Phrasal-prepositional Verb (verb + adverb + preposition) Types I ( come up with N)and II ( put N up for N, e.g., an election), where Type II is in each case theone containing a direct object. A further three types are listed under "others",namely verb-adjective combinations (e.g. lie low , cut N short ), verb-verbcombinations (e.g. make do with, put paid to ) and verbs governing twoprepositions (e.g. develop from ... into ).

Several problems may be mentioned in connection with this

classification. Firstly, the principal types are allocated to the class of multi -word verbs on semantic grounds (idiomaticity), whereas this does not seemto apply to the last three minor types. Secondly, the idiomatic approach canlead to interesting exclusions. Combinations such as come in, and send N away , which syntactically behave identically to crop up, turn N down , arethus not treated as multi-word verbs. Cases such as depend on, consist of with an obligatory preposition also seem to find no place here. Moreover,idiomaticity is not a clear-cut affair, but is best seen as a cline yielding a not

very happy basis for classificatory purposes. For instance, their excludedexample run away with was found in the present corpus in a sense that couldbe glossed by the simplex "steal", while of course the literal meaning wouldalso still be present in the mind of the speaker/hearer. Fourthly, prepositionalverb types IIb and IIc (subdivisions not mentioned above) contain a furtherfixed, unchangeable element besides the preposition, namely a noun as in


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take care of, give way to , and lose touch with . The question is whether thepresence of the noun, which is collocationally and semantically more salientthan the preposition, should not take precedence over the latter in classifyingthese types. They are definitely on a different level than Type IIa whichcontains structures such as thank N for N, where the N slot can be filled bymany different nouns. Talking of nominal elements in multi-word verbs, it isalso somewhat unclear where combinations such as take into consideration would fit in with the present classification. They are mentioned only inpassing as "yet another sub-type" of Type IIa prepositional verbs, ifexamples given there ( lull N to sleep, put N to rights ) can be interpreted asbeing of the "take into consideration" -type. Another minor point is why verbsgoverning two prepositions should be separated so completely from the otherprepositional types in the classification. A last point concerns the verb -adjec-tive combinations, namely the question why instances such as makesure/certain and see fit (mentioned only in a footnote) are not countedamong them.

Hückel (1968/69)

An attempt to classify the major types of multi-word verbs according to

strictly formal criteria, excluding semantic considerations as far as possible,is found in Hückel’s (1968/9:257-260) article dealing with the"Wortverband" ( lexical unit). The formal criteria applied comprisetransitivity and word order, as well as the possibilities of passivization andnominalization. Thus, Hückel’s first general division is into transitive andintransitive combinations. The transitive category contains the following fivemajor types:1. verb + particle + direct object,

2. verb + direct object + particle,3. verb + particle + preposition + direct object,4. verb + reflexive pronoun + particle,5. verb + fixed direct object.Type 1 is further split up into ’A’ with moveable particle position, eitherbefore or after the direct object ( lay (down) the burden (down) ), and ’B’where the particle is fixed in pre-object position, e.g. take out insurance,strike up a friendship . Type 2 is in a way the mirror image of Type 1B by

requiring the particle to occur in fixed post-object position as in see N off, do N in . Type 4 is illustrated by give oneself away and brace oneself up . HisType 3 consists of ’A’ which permits movement of the particle and ’B’ with

claudia claridge-multi-word verbs in early modern english. a corpus-based study (language and...

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