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In absolute detail: The development of English absolute constructions from adverbial to additional-context marker

Nikki van de Pol & Hubert CuyckensUniversity of LeuvenResearch Foundation ‒ Flanders

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Structure of the talk

• Introducing absolutes• Earlier views on the functionality of ACs • Hypothesis• Methodology• Results• Conclusion• References

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Introduction

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Introducing absolutes

Some examples of absolutes (ACs):(1) So within, your very new born sleeping all the time, its body temperature

can begin to drop without you knowing. (BNC, 1992)

(2) With my form filled in, I phoned. (BNC, 1989)

(3) And immediately after this Excuse sent, without tarrying four or five Days, or any more Days, the same Night, you by and by stole away into Norfolk. (PENN, 1571)

2 subtypes• unaugmented absolutes: not introduced by preposition

(prototypical & older), as in (1)• augmented absolutes: introduced by a preposition. In PDE

typically with(out), as in (2), in earlier stages of the language more options were available such as after, before, by reason of,… (3)

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Introducing absolutes

(4) He turned just as the kettle began to boil, and, the tea forgotten, he strode from the kitchen and out of the flat.(BNC, 1990)

• non-finite construction• predicate + (pro)nominal subject• predicate = participle (prototypically) or noun/NP,

adjective/AdjP, adverb/AdvP, prepositional phrase, infinitive

• wide range of semantic relations with the matrix clause often similar to finite (subordinate) adverbial clauses

• initial, medial and final position possible; can form a separate sentence as well

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Earlier views on the functionality of ACs

View A: The AC as purely adverbial

• Berent (1973: 147) clearly states that 'semantically, the [PDE] absolute bears the same relationship to the main sentence as any other subordinate clause does' and calls ACs and adverbials 'functionally identical'

• Stump (1985: 3) remarks that PDE absolutes have 'the ability to play the role of a number of different sorts of adverbial clauses'

• Haspelmath (1995: 27) in reference to absolutes in general (i.e. crosslinguistically) explains that 'this construction functions as a subordinate clause with some nonspecific adverbial relation to the main clause'

• Komen (1994: 11) again stresses the adverbial nature of the construction

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Earlier views on the functionality of ACs

VIEW B: More than purely adverbial: first indications

• Kortmann (1995: 215-217) divides his PDE data semantically into three categories: a temporal group, a causal group and 'a third group which cannot be glossed by any finite adverbial clause except perhaps a while clause'

• Timofeeva (2010), makes for Old English a distinction between 'purely adverbial' ACs which include time, cause, condition and concession and 'adverbial-adjectival' ACs including attendant circumstance, manner and appositive ACs (i.e. those with inalienable possession relations)

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Hypothesis & Methodology

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Hypothesis

• The AC is still commonly described as expressing the same range of semantic relationships with its matrix clause as finite adverbial subordinate clauses (e.g. cause, anteriority, concession etc.) and is hence considered on a par with adverbials (Berent 1973: 147; Kisbye 1972: 72)

• It is hypothesized that the expression of these adverbial relations by ACs has become secondary in PDE, in that a substantial number of ACs have come to express meanings which are less clearly adverbial

ACs in PDE express the general function of 'marker of any additional contextual information’

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Hypothesis

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Hypothesis

• Indicative of this change are ACs that lack a single, clear adverbial interpretation and/or simply form an elaboration on the matrix clause

(5) He also made the now-controversial decision to shoot at 48 frames-a-second, which delivers a larger and sharper focus than the usual 24 frames, creating what Jackson sees as a more vivid audience experience. That provoked some negative reactions when Jackson showed 10 minutes of Hobbit footage at CinemaCon in April, with some critics complaining that the daylight sequences were too crisp and looked more like high-definition video than film.(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-hobbit-peter-jackson-warner-bros-1-billion-79301?page=show 18-10-2012)

(6)The base on this statue is also very well done with the base being some of the snowy areas you venture into while fighting in the North. (http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/10/07/62874-collecting-the-precious-sideshow-collectibles-snow-troll-statue-review/ 8-10-2012)

(7) Large and predominantly white, the King Vulture has gray to black ruff, flight, and tail feathers. The head and neck are bald, with the skin color varying, including yellow, orange, blue, purple, and red. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Vulture, 26-09-2012)

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Hypothesis

• The AC’s increasing non-adverbial use (i.e., merely marking additional-context) may represent a shift on the subordination ‒ coordination cline, in particular from an integrated (subordinate) structure to a quasi-coordinate structure (paraphrasable by and or whereby)

(8) The constant uncertainty took its toll. "We were told a lot of times,understandably, 'Look, you guys, probably another month and we should resolve this,' " says Jackson. "Ultimately, it got a little disheartening, with Guillermo obviously feeling it more than anybody else.” (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-hobbit-peter-jackson-warner-bros-1-billion-79301?page=show 18-10-2012)

(9) As Charles Fillmore (1981) put it, " the language of face-to-face conversation is the basic and primary use of language, all others being best described in terms of their manner of deviation from that base". (Clark, Using language, p.10)

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Factors favoring the non-adverbial interpretation

• Some factors might correlate with the occurrence of an adverbial vs. non-adverbial (i.e., mere additional context) interpretation

1. augmentation vs. non-augmentation: any positive correlation between with-augmentation and the AC’s function as ‘mere additional-context’ marker may be explained by with’s bleaching (or generalization) from ‘accompaniment’ meaning to a mere marker of circumstantial information

2. the position of the AC with respect to the matrix clause (initial, medial, or final): while initial position may be said to encode accommodate (temporal, causal) background information, final position may be preferred for encoding local, additional information (see also Kortmann 1991: 169)

3. (partial) co-reference between the AC’s subject and the matrix subject: to the extent that ACs may restrict themselves to providing additional context to the information in the main clause, co-reference relations between the AC’s subject and the matrix may increase

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Methodology

• Corpus-based research• EModE + LModE:1500-1914 PENN parsed corpora

• 1,737,853 words for EModE and 948,895 words for LModE (= entire corpus)

• 5,378 absolutes: 3,422 for EModE (224 with-augmented) 1,858 for LModE (315 with-augmented)

• genres: drama, fiction, narrative non-fiction, handbooks and sciences, law, religious texts

• Search method: used the corpus’s parsing system; searched for AC-tags and filtered out wrong codings manually

• PDE BNC (1985-1994) + KU Leuven Drama Corpus (1969-1972)

• 3,611,088 words (= own selection)• 3,984 absolutes (1,760 with-augmented)• genres: spoken, drama, fiction, narrative non-fiction, handbooks and

sciences, poetry, law, religious texts• Search method: read the entire subcorpus and filtered out ACs

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Semantic categories

ADVERBIAL MEANINGS• Concession

(10) But even with this threat eliminated, Hua's reign was to be short-lived. (BNC, 1991)

• Condition(11) All being well, it will slowly qualify to make decisions upon progressively more major matters. (BNC, 1991)

• Reason(12) But Philip, his prestige at stake in this first open challenge to the Angevin position, could not afford to retreat. (BNC, 1989)

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Semantic categories

• Anteriority(13) Her mistress having died, she adopted us, not we her, about 5 weeks ago, and though our old cat finds her a bit of a trial he does seem somewhat rejuvenated by her presence. (BNC, 1985-1994)

• Manner(14) He shook out the blanket that topped the picnic items, and sat, his back against the trunk, those long legs stretched out in front of him. (BNC, 1993)

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Semantic categories

• Result(15) Before long his legs were cramping badly, and one of the cuts on his back had begun to bleed again, the red seeping through the yellow linen of his tunic. (A Dance with Dragons, 2011)

• Accompanying circumstance (includes simultaneity)(16) The villagers had laid Father Reynard out on the table and an old woman, tears streaming down her face, was gently bathing the corpse before it was sheeted for burial.(BNC, 1992)

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Semantic categories

MERE ADDITIONAL CONTEXT MEANINGS

• Mixed(17)The controversy deepened with obvious pressure coming from various quarters being put on the authors and the television network. (BNC, 1991)

• Elaboration (includes addition and exemplification)(18) It seemed to be a green light to both sides, the brewery's only concern being that they weren't Jehovah's Witnesses or Christian Scientists! (BNC, 1991)

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Quasi-coordinated or not

• The label quasi-coordinated was given when the conjunction and could be placed between the matrix and the (turned finite) AC without altering the AC’s meaning or turning the sentence ungrammatical

(19) It was an uneasy truce, however, with clear signs of tension persisting. (BNC 1991)√ and clear signs of tension persisted.

(20) Johnson heard bagpipes at Armadale, and a story to accompany them of a past Macdonald aggression against a family in Culloden, whom the Macdonalds locked in their church one Sunday morning and torched, this being the tune played while the flames danced. (BNC, 1993) √ and this was the tune played while the flames danced

(21) Several small incidents, one revolving around a pop concert, incited more students into action. (BNC, 1991)* and one revolved around a pop concert(22) Most Tories favoured the establishment of a regency, with Mary exercising the regal powers on James's behalf, but this was defeated in the House of Lords on 29 January by the narrow vote of fifty-one to forty-eight.* and Mary exercised the regal powers on James's behalf

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Coreference categories

• Non-coreference(23) Although such developments are primarily intended to introduce operating benefits, ie improved specific fuel consumption or thrust to weight ratio, reduced flightdeck workload etc, their maintenance workload implications are less certain. Close to state of the art aircraft operation can be achieved economically by modification or retrofit, ie hushkitting, reengine programmes, flight deck upgrades, etc. Therefore, with demand outstripping supply for new aircraft production, existing in-service aircraft are replaced more slowly. (BNC, 1991)

• Part-whole coreference(24) Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the fact that they were being stared at with unveiled interest by most members of the group, the most curious of all, of course, being Mandy. (BNC, 1993)

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Coreference categories

• Inalienable possession(25) With my head bent over the sink I had plenty of time to work out my options. (BNC, 1991)

• Full coreference(26) Johnson and Boswell made up their quarrel when they rose, with Johnson saying he would not have turned back, as he had threatened, and headed for Edinburgh.(BNC, 1993)

• Discourse coreference(27) Where money is particularly tight, some couples will start married life in a spare room at the home of one set of parents; usually the bride’s. This being the case, the couple have to work hard to establish themselves as a new adult unit. (BNC, 1985-1994)

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Results

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Old and Middle English

• ACs are used purely adverbially in this period. The AC is most frequently used to express a temporal relation with the matrix clause. (Bauer 2000: 261, Mitchell 1985: 914-922, Visser 1972: 1147-1148, 1259-1261)

(28) & ymne acwædene eodun ut on oelebearwes dune. (Rushworth, Matthew, 26.30) ‘And when they had sung a hymn (lit. 'the hymn sung'), they went out to the Mount of Olives.’

(29) On tam dage tam halende utgangendum of huse he sat . . . (WSC, Matthew,13.1)‘On that day, the savior going out of the house, he sat down . . .’

• In my own preliminary research into Old English (van de Pol 2010) I did not come across any evidence to the contrary

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Semantics EModE-PDE

• Meanings associated with the AC as mere additional-context marker increase in use towards the PDE period. (p-value in χ² test < 0.001 i.e. the change is highly significant)

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Semantics EModE-PDE

• Meanings associated with the AC as mere additional-context marker increase in use towards the PDE period. (p-value in χ² test < 0.001 i.e. the change is highly significant)

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Semantics PDE

• Of the 1975 ACs with mere additional context meanings, 844, or 42.7% could be considered quasi-coordinated

• This is 21.2% of all the PDE ACs that were analyzed

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Influence of augmentation?• Augmentation does not seem to be a determining factor in the expression of an adverbial vs. a

mere additional context meaning • This finding is statistically supported by a p-value of 0.491 in the accompanying χ² test • The occasional non-with-augmented ACs on the other hand clearly represent specific

adverbial meanings

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Influence of position?

• There is a strong (p < 0.001) correlation between an initial position and an adverbial AC meaning.

• For medial position the division is about 50/50, whereas final sentence position slightly favours the ‘additional context’ meanings.

• ACs that occur separately are quite rare (92 instances) compared to the other types, but they occur most often with ‘additional context’ meanings.

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Influence of coreference?• Coreference also clearly has (statistically significant) influence on the AC• The coreference categories full coreference and especially part-whole coreference occur more often

when the AC is used as a mere additional context marker. This is to be expected since they (partially) repeat their anchor in the matrix and give additional information about it

• Non-coreference was expected to co-occur with adverbial meanings but has in fact no demonstrable effect on the adverbial/additional-context distinction

• The coreference categories discourse coreference and inalienable possession tend to occur together with adverbial meanings , the latter especially with accompanying circumstance

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Conclusion

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Conclusion

• The use of ACs as mere additional context marker has increased over time vis-à-vis the clear adverbial uses– This development could be labelled as highly statistically

significant– It also ties in well with the intrinsic semantically indeterminate

character of the construction and broadens its scope of use– Interestingly, Killie & Swan‘s (2009) study on the development

of participial -ing clauses shows the opposite trend (from a quasi-coordinate -ing status to an integrated, subordinate status).

• Augmentation does not affect the semantic interpretation of ACs as far as the adverbial/additional context distinction goes

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Conclusion

• Sentence position, however, did turn out to be a statistically relevant factor as initial position ties in with adverbial meanings, whereas final and separate position occur more often with mere additional context meanings

• Finally, coreference also correlates with the AC semantics but not completely in the way that was expected– Rather than disfavouring the mere additional context meanings

‘non-coreference’ had no demonstrable effect on the adverbial/additional-context distinction

– When coreference is present discourse coreference and inalienable possession relations favour adverbial meanings, whereas full coreference and part-whole coreference favour mere additional context meanings

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References

• Bauer, Brigitte. 2000. Archaic syntax in Indo-European. The spread of transitivity in Latin and French. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Berent, G.P. 1973. 'Absolute constructions as 'subordinate clauses''. In Corum, Smith, Stark and Weiser (eds.). 1973. You take the high node and I'll take the low node. Papers from the Comparative Syntax Festival . Chicago: CLS. 147-154.

• Haspelmath, Martin. 1995. 'The converb as a cross-linguistically valid category'. In: M. Haspelmath & E. König (eds.). 1995. Converbs in cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1-55.

• Killie, K. & T. Swan. 2009. 'The grammaticalization and subjectification of adverbial –ing clauses (converb clauses) in English'. ELL 13. 337-363.

• Kisbye, Torben. 1972. An historical outline of English syntax. Aarhus: Akademisk boghandel.• Komen, J.H.M. 1994. Over de ontwikkeling van absolute constructies. Amsterdam: Buijten en Schipperhejn.• Kortmann, Bernd. 1991. Free adjuncts and absolutes in English: problems of control and interpretation. London

& New York: Routledge.• Kortmann, Bernd. 1995. 'Adverbial participial clauses in English.' In Martin Haspelmath and Ekkehard König.

1995. Converbs in cross- linguistic perspective. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 189-237.• Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English syntax. Oxford: Clarendon. • Stump, G. T. 1985. The semantic variability of absolute constructions. Dordrecht: Reidel.• Timofeeva, Olga. 2010. 'Non-finite constructions in Old English with special reference to syntactic borrowing

from Latin.' In Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 80. by Juhani Härmä, Jarmo Korhonen and Terttu Nevalainen. Jyväskylä: WS Bookwell Oy.

• van de Pol, Nikki. 2010. The absolute construction in Old and Middle English: a case of Latin influence? MA Thesis. Leuven

• van de Pol, Nikki. 2012. ‘Between copy and cognate: the origin of absolutes in Old and Middle English’. In Robbeets M., Johanson L. (Eds.).2012 The Origins of Bound Morphology. Leiden: Brill.

• Visser, Frederikus Theodorus. 1973. An historical syntax of the English language. Leiden: Brill.

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References (corpora)

• BNC: The British National Corpus, later part 20th century, 100 m words. Department of Linguistics, University of Oxford. (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/corpus/index.xml? ID=intro).

• Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Diachronic and Dialectal, 750-1700, 1.5 m words. Department of English, University of Helsinki. Third edition, (http://icame.uib.no/ hc/).

• PPCEME: The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English, 1500-1710, 1.7 m words. Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania. CD-ROM, first edition, (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/).

• PPCMBE: The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Modern British English, 1700-1914, 1 m words. Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania. CD-ROM, first edition, (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/).