The decline of weorðan in English
versus the grammaticalization of
werden in German
Peter Petré
Functional Linguistics Leuven (FLL)
Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen)
Topic
• Present Day English and (High) German use different auxiliaries for the passive: be and werden ‘become’.
• Originally both languages used both verbs (e.g., Zieglschmid 1929, 1931). • How to account for the different paths of development of OE & OHG?
• Hypothesis:
◊ English lost weorðan (the cognate of werden) when it abandoned the bounded construal of narratives, inherited from Germanic.
◊ German further grammaticalized this system, with the preservation of werden as a consequence.
• My analysis is restricted to passive (and copular) werden. Werden as the auxiliary of the future is not discussed.
The initial situation
(1) (a) Latin Quae cum vidisset, turbata est (Lk. 1.29)
(b) OHG Tho siu thiu gisah, was gitruobit (c830. Tatian)
(c) MHG Do sy es gehort sy wart betrubt (c1466. Mentel).
(d) OE – Þa wearð heo on his spræce gedrefed. (c1025. WSCp)
(e) ME Marie [...], whanne she had herd, was troublid in his word. ((c1384).
Wyclif)
(2) (a) Latin Et Zacharias turbatus est videns, et timor inruit super eum (Lk 1.11) (b) OHG Thanan tho Zacharias uuard gitruobit thaz sehenti, inti forhta anafiel ubar inan. (c830. Tatian)
(c) OE Ða wearð Zacharias gedrefed þæt geseonde & him ege onhreas. (WSCp))
(3)OE Gedrefd heo wæs, þa þa heo fleah into Egypte for Herode kinge, þe
hire cild wolde fordon
“Troubled she was, when she fled to Egypt for King Herod, who wanted to kill her child.”
Complementarity, competition, frequency
• Zieglschmidt (1929), Klingebiel (1937): next to weorðan, wesan/beon are used in dynamic passives as well
• Frary (1929: 17) observes: "wearþ is suited to direct narration, while wæs is natural in relative and causal-temporal clauses, which are usually a statement of fact or of completed action."
• Early on, loss was explained through external influence (Norse, French). • Mitchell (1985) disagrees and claims they are in free variation:
(4) (Annal 633) Her wearð Eadwine cing ofslagen [...] (Annal 642) Her was Oswald ofslagen
Norðhymbra cing.
"In this year king Edwin was killed [...] In this year Oswald was killed, king of the Northhumbrians." (c1107. ChronF: 633 & 642)
• If so, weorðan may have disappeared simply because of its lower frequency (see Previous research on OE
Expressivity
• Expressivity can hardly be an explanatory factor• Kilpiö (1989: 85), Müller (2009) showed that weorðan has some semantic characteristics of its own, preferring sudden changes, often with negative connotations (sona wearð yrre 'suddenly became angry')
A different approach
• The focus on the passive in studies on weorðan is too narrow: weorðan was lost in all of its uses
• Because of this narrow focus, certain generalizations are lost • The disappearance of weorðan is accounted for by means of its
overlap/near-synonymy with wesan/beon:
◊ This overlap is peripheral at best;
◊ The part played by the much more central semantic and functional differences between weorðan en wesan/(is/beon) in the process of loss is much more important.
• The existing studies do not account for the fact that weorðan is lost first in the past tense (where it 'competes' with wesan), and only about half a century later in the present tense (Petré 2010a, b)
Genre and grammar
• As Frary already observed, there is a correlation between wearð and the narrative genre
• Genre itself correlates to a module within the grammar
• Genre can be considered a macro-constructional environment (a grammaticalized system) in which a large number of lexemes and constructions interact in a structured and regular way.
• An important distinction within narrative text construction is that between
bounded and unbounded:
◊ Bounded language use: the endpoint is included, marks progress (e.g. He walks over to the other side).
◊ Unbounded language use: construes situations as open-ended, often by means of a progressive (e.g., he is walking about) (Declerck 2007).
Nature of grammaticalized systems
• Both types of use are not freely available in a language-independentfashion (Carroll & von Stutterheim 2003, Carroll & Lambert 2003 & Carroll, von Stutterheim & Nuese 2004):
• Grammatical form should not be viewed as a separate system which is independent of meaning, but as one which incorporates a system of meanings which is treated in a given language as prominent in the conceptualisation of states of affairs (2004: 185).
• Cross-linguistic diversity consists less in what is possible to specify than in the relative ease with which meanings can be specified.
• Depending on the availability of certain grammaticalized constructions, some languages show a strong preference for bounded construal of events (German, Dutch), while other languages more easily make use of unbounded construal (Present-Day English or Arabic).
Bounded construal
• Languages with grammaticalized bounded construal: German, Dutch • Similar to a camera filming through the eyes of the protagonist
(5) Auf einmal hört der Mann Wasser tropfen Und dann gräbt er nach dem Wasser
Bis der Sand dann unter ihm nachgibt • Abundant use of time adverbials
◊ divide the narrative in temporal segments (bound each segment):
◊ define a topic-time (topic 1; Klein 1994: 3), for which the statement applies. ◊ topic-time shifts with each segment
◊ connect the preceding clause with the present clause ◊ are often in first position (Vf2).
• The subject (topic 2) is the protagonist of the series of events
Unbounded construal
• Languages with grammaticalized unbounded construal : English, Arabic • Like a camera filming with bird's eye view
(6) The man is hearing the sound of dripping water and he is digging for the water
and the sand is caving in under him
• Topic-time remains constant and serves as a frame (an implicit 'long now') • Events:
◊ are construed in an unbounded manner (progessive) ◊ are all anchored to the framing topic-time
• Subject
◊ fixed in first position ◊ only topic
Grammaticalized boundedness in OE
• Bounded language use in OE is omnipresent:(7) Ða æfter feawa dagum se gingra sunu forspilde his æhta. Ða he hig hæfde ealle amyrrede þa wearð mycel hunger & he wearð wædla. Þa beþohte he hine & cwæð, Ic fare to minum fæder, & ic secge him, Eala fæder, do me swa anne of þinum
yrðlingum. & þa gyt þa he wæs feorr his fæder he hyne geseah & wearð mid mildheortnesse astyrod.
“Then after a few days the younger son wasted his possessions. When he had
them all wasted, then a great hunger came (wurde) over the country & he became (wurde) a beggar. Then he thought by himself and said: “I will go to my father, and I will tell him: hey father, take me as one of your servants." And he arose then and came to his father, and when he was still far his father saw him and was (wurde) stirred by mercy”.” (c1025. Lk (WSCp): 13-20)
• We may speak of an OE bounded system.
Breakdown of OE bounded system
• From c1300:◊ Vf2 breaks down, and SV develops
◊ Drastic decrease of time adverbials, especially þa (Kemenade & Los 2006) ◊ Present tense: increase of progressive be Vende/ing (Killie 2008)
◊ Past tense: increase of partly unbounded ingressive constructions with (be)ginnen (Brinton 1988, Los 2000)
• Contrast the following ME translation (and note the absence of wearð)
(8) And not aftir many daies the ȝonger sone wastide hise goodis. And aftir that he hadde endid alle thingis, a strong hungre was maad, and he bigan to haue nede. And he turnede aȝen to hym silf, and seide, Y schal go to my fadir, and Y schal seie to hym, Fadir, make me as oon of thin hirid men. And whanne he was ȝit afer, his fadir saiȝ hym, and was stirrid bi mercy. ((c1384). WBible(1) (Dc 369(2)): Luke 15.13-20)
• The change of state-semantics of (ge)wearð are very suitable for expressing narrative action (foreground)
• Narrative action constitutes the domain where bounded constructions are used
• (Ge)wearð is strongly associated with this type of constructions
• A first indication is its strong preference for main clauses (see Petré 2010a) • Main clauses provide two types of evidence of the association:
◊ semantic evidence: strong association with bounding time adverbs ◊ formal evidence: strong association with verb-second word order
• The strength of this association can best be measured by comparing
(ge)wearð with its most frequent competitor wæs.
(Ge)wearð and the bounded system
A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðanSemantic association: time adverbials
• Time adverbials bound sentences (define topic-time)
• A distinctive collexeme analysis shows the association between (ge)wearð with time adverbials of narrative progress vs. wæs
The analysis of alternating pairs of constructions and their relative preferences for words that can (or should be able to) occur in both of them’ (Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004: 101).
• Because of this strong association of (ge)wearð with (bounding) time adverbials of narrative progress, (ge)wearð disappears when these time adverbials
Examples of semantic association
Wearð + THO / + SOON
(9)Heo hine freclice bat. Ða wearð heo sona fram deofle gegripen.
"She beat him heavily. Then was/got she suddenly taken by the devil." (c1025) Wearð + AFTER_X
(10) Meoduscerwen wearð æfter symbeldæge
"A beer-bitterness arose after the feast-day." (c1000) Wæs without time adverbial
(11) Yfel wæs Iudas ðe Crist becheapode. "Evil was Judas who betrayed Christ." Wæs with THROUGHOUT_PERIOD
(12) Her forðferde Cnut cing æt Scieftesbyri, [...] & he was cing ofer eal Englaland welneah XX wintra.
"In this year died king Cnut in Shaftesbury, [...] and he was/had been king over all England almost 20 winters." (c1107)
Formal association: main clause order
• First position in Vf2-system serves to construe textual coherence◊ Often, but not always, time adverbials are in first position
◊ PPs of place or cause are also possible (e.g. dadurch wurde er bang)
• "verb-second was all but defunct by 1500" (Los 2009: 110; Warner 2007) Table 3: Word order of main clauses with wearð vs. wæs (prose)
• Preference for Vf2 associates wearð to bounded constructions formally
Consequences for the passive
• In the end wæs was far less affected by the breakdown of the bounded system than was (ge)wearð, and so it was generalized as the only auxiliary of the passive
(13) Latin Ecce aperti sunt ei caeli
“See: opened are him:DAT heavens” (Mt. 3.16)
(14) OE & him wurdon þærrihte heofenas ontynede “and him:DAT got immediately heavens opened” (c1025) (15) ME and lo! heuenes weren openyd to hym (c1384)
The OHG situation
• As was the case for OE, in OHG werden and wesen were both found as auxiliaries of the passive.
• Opposite to OE, it is werden which is generalized in later German.
(14)Et cum coepisset rationem ponere, oblatus est ei unus qui debebat decem milia talenta. (Mt. 18.24)
(15)Inti mittiu her bigonda redea sezzan, braht uuard imo ein, ther scolta zehen thusunta talentono. "and when he began to take the account, one was brought to him, how owed him 10,000
talents."
(16)Inti uuas tho giuúortan, mittiu her ín uúihita, eruúeiz fon ín inti uúas braht in hímil
"And then it had happened, when he consecrated them, withdrew from them and was brought into heaven." (Mk. 16.19)
(17)Nach dem er mit jnen geredt hatte / Ward er auffgehaben gen Himel (1534. Luth., Mark 16, 19: )
Grammaticalization of bounded system
• Mirroring the explanation for the loss of weorðan, it may be hypothesized that wesen as an auxiliary of the (dynamic) passive was lost because the bounded system (with time adverbs and verb-second), with which werden was more strongly associated than wesen, was retained and further grammaticalized.
Evidence (1)
• Wesen is fairly rare as a dynamic auxiliary.• This may point to the fact that the grammaticalization of the bounded system was already in a very advanced state in the earliest OHG documents.
• What evidence can we find that the development in German is really a mirror of the English one?
Evidence (2)
• Wesen as a dynamic passive auxiliary is mainly restricted to Tatian.
• Tatian is a dangerous text, as it is heavily influenced by its Latin source. • One may, e.g., claim that wesen is simply a calque of Latin est.
• However:
◊ There is some independent evidence for dynamic wesen in other texts: (18) Gidan uuas thaz in hona.
“it was done in contempt” (Otfrid)
◊ More importantly, Tatian does provide some evidence for the different associational strengths of wesen and werden with the not yet fully grammaticalized verb-second system
◊ Formal: wesen is possibly preferred in V1 & with fronted participle;
◊ Semantic: werden more often co-occurs with thô (equivalent of OE þa 'then') B – Grammaticalization of werden
Formal evidence?
• Tatian may prefer to use wesen in clause-initial position or when the participle is in first position
(19) Ducebantur autem et alii duo nequam cum eo (Lk. 23. 32) (20) Warun gileittit andre zuene ubile mit imo (c830. Tatian)
(22) Es worden aber auch hin gefuhrt zween ander Ubeltheter. (c1534. Luther) (23) Et contristati sunt vehementer. (Mat. 17. 23)
(24) Inti gitruobta warun thrato sie .
(25) Und sy wurden hart betriibt. (c1466. Mentel)
• These tendencies are, admittedly, fairly weak.
• Interestingly, there is a possible link with verb-first. Old English wæs too
Semantic evidence
• More importantly, werden is highly associated with thô (as in OE), which does not always have an equivalent in the Latin source.
(26)
(a) Tunc adimpletum est quod dictum est per Hieremiam prophetam dicentem: (b) Thô uuard gifullit thaz thar giquetan uuas thuruh Hieremiam then uuîzzagon sus quedantan:
(27)
(a) Latin Et Zacharias turbatus est videns, et timor inruit super eum (Lk 1.11)
(b) OHG Thanan tho Zacharias uuard gitruobit thaz sehenti, inti forhta anafiel ubar inan. (c830. Tatian)
• This association is more felicitous for German, as it was for English, since thô 'da', B – Grammaticalization of werden
Conclusions
• The associational strength of weorðan to verb-second and time adverbs such as þa is a clear indication that the breakdown of these phenomena played an important in the loss of weorðan itself.
• While evidence for a mirroring development in OHG is relatively harder to find, I have at least not found any counterevidence for that hypothesis, and the stronger association of werden with thô may provide some positive evidence as well.
