Nikki van de PolPeter PetréHubert Cuyckens

KU LeuvenResearch Foundation ‒ Flanders

Why is there a Present-day English absolute?

Structure of the talk• Introducing absolutes• Earlier views on the distribution of ACs • Hypothesis• Methodology• Results• Conclusion• References

Introduction

Introducing absolute constructions (ACs)Unaugmented absolutes(1a) She wiggled into the kitchen ..., her snug skirt binding her knees in a geisha-

like gait. (COHA) (1b) Er lag ... een brief in mijn hut, zei hij half voor zich uit, zijn blik weer op het

grijs daarbuiten gericht. (Het godsdeeltje)(‘his gaze focused again on the grey outside’)

Augmented absolutes(2a) He ... crawled on with blood dripping from his chin. (TIME)(2b) Later werd hij met een kogel door zijn hoofd in Florida gevonden. (Memoires)

(‘with a bullet through his head’)

Introducing absolutes(3) The big hard right fist caught Elam on the side of the jaw and stretched the

man out on the floor, blood leaking from his mouth. (COHA, 2001)

• Non-finite construction• Predicate + (pro)nominal subject• Predicate = (typically) participle; noun/NP, adjective/AdjP,

adverb/AdvP, PP, infinitive• Semantics ~ finite (subordinate) adverbial clauses• May appear anywhere in the sentence

Prescriptive views on ACs (1)• Dutch/English grammars view ACs as formal, archaic and infrequent

o The ANS (Haeseryn et al. 1997): only met-augmented AC are productive in PDD. Unaugmented ACs occur in some highly formal idioms only

o Quirk et al. (1985: 1120): PDE ACs are formal and infrequent o Ross (1893): ME & ModE ACs are markers of a “classical, learned, scholastic style”

(1893: 273) o Kohnen (2004: 352): ACs developed through formal text types

• Recent English style advice embraces ACs as a useful additiono e.g., ACs are compact and can provide variation from the conventional adverbial

clause (Hannay & Mackenzie 2002: 96)

Prescriptive views on ACs (2)• Dutch school grammars almost all ignore the existence of the AC and

prescriptivism tends to argue against its use (Komen 1994: 37) (Haeseryn et al. 1997)

• In English, prescriptive rejection was limited to the use of the accusative or objective AC (Komen 1994: 102)

Research on the distribution of ACs• AC is still productive and common in English

o In informal registers, when augmented by with (König & van der Auwera 1990: 349)

o In written language, frequency of use decreases proportionally to an increase of the formality of the text type (Kortmann’s 1991:2)

o In spoken language (van de Pol & Cuyckens 2014)

Hypothesis & Methodology

Hypothesis• Present-day English makes significantly more use of ACs

than other Germanic languages (Kortmann 1995:189-192)

• Two interconnected language internal reasonso Structural priming (Loebell & Bock 2003)o Formal and functional overlap

• English prescriptivism ↔ other Germanic languages

Methodology• Corpus-based English – Dutch comparison

o (+ Literature on other Germanic languages)

• EModE & LModE: 1500-1914 PENN, Old Bailey, Poetryo EModE: ca. 1.7 million words; LModE: ca. 1 million wordso # EModE: 3,422 (224 with-augmented); # LModE: 1,858 (315 with-augmented)o Representative variety of written genreso For LModE: near spoken language from direct speech segments in Old Bailey Corpuso Search method: AC tag search (PENN), read & filter manually (Old Bailey, Poetry)

• PDE: BNC (1985-’94), KU Leuven Drama Corpus (’69-’72)o Sample of ca. 3.6 million wordso # PDE 3,984 (1,760 with-augmented)o Representative variety of genres, including spoken registero Search method: read & filter manually

Methodology• Late Modern Dutch (19th century)

o DBNL: ca. 150,000 wordso # 129 ACs (60 augmented)o Representative variety of written genreso Search method: read & filter manually

• PDD (20th century): DBNL, De Standaard Online, E-bookso Ca. 375,000 wordso # 137 ACs (75 augmented)o Representative variety of written genreso Search method: read & filter manually

Results

Overall frequency development• Both English and Dutch show a gradual decline in AC

frequency, but the AC frequency (n = 100,000) is markedly higher for English

Predicate types• For Dutch, the decline in AC use is especially prominent for present

and past participles

LModD PDD0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Predicate types

• Present participles have become rare as an AC predicate in PDD, while they are still the primary AC predicate in PDE, as they have been at least since EModE (van de Pol & Cuyckens 2013b)

• Prepositional phrases are by far the most frequent predicate type in PDD ACs

9%

23%

3%9%

53%

4%

Present-day Dutch

adjectiveadverbnoun phrasepast participleprepositional phrasepresent participle

10%5%

2%

19%

21%

41%

1% 1%

Present-day English

adjectiveadverbnoun phrasepast participleprepositional phrasepresent participleperfective participleinfinitive

Augmentation• With-/met-augmentation becomes increasingly obligatory

in both English and Dutch but the development in Dutch has progressed further

LModE LModD PDE PDD0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Semantics• PDD AC use is largely limited to expressing relations of elaboration, accompanying

circumstance or manner. ‘Stronger’ (cf. Kortmann 1991: 121) adverbial uses have become rare

• PDE: stronger adverbial uses are still more common (p<0.001), even though elaboration uses have gained ground over time: 23.8% in EModE over 32.3% in LModE to 44.1% in PDE (van de Pol & Cuyckens 2013a)

• Strong adverbial uses are more easily expressed by more verbal predicate types

Dutch English 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Possibilities for structural primingWhat is structural priming (Loebell & Bock 2003)?

The structure of one construction is echoed in the structure of a second construction that may be otherwise unrelated to the first

generalization

either construction is more likely to occur after the other construction was used

Possibilities for structural primingThe gerund• Dutch never had a gerund-like construction (König 1994: 559)

structural priming by gerunds is only possible in English

The progressive• English

o has been fully grammaticalizedo is still very productive

• Dutcho never extended to the passive progressive (van der Horst 2008) o was replaced by liggen, staan or zitten (+ te) + infinitive or aan het

+ infinitive (Ebert 2000:607; Betinetto et al. 2000: 528)• Only the English progressive continues to support participial ing-forms

Possibilities for structural primingThe free adjunct• 18th century: 211.8 free adjuncts per 100,000 words for Dutch versus 212.7 per 100,000

words for English. (Fonteyn & Cuyckens 2013: 169-170) • 19th century: free adjuncts had a much lower frequency in Dutch (96.1 per 100,000

words) than in English (177.7 per 100,000 words) (Fonteyn & Cuyckens 2013: 169-170) Kortmann’s 1995 article suggests an even larger difference for 20th century English (313.8 per 100,000 words)

The free adjunct is a much better ‘anchor’ for the AC in the English language system than it is in Dutch

18th century 19th century0

50

100

150

200

250

Possibilities for structural priming• Cross-linguistically free adjuncts tend to be at the center of a cluster of

participial uses (König & Van der Auwera 1990) free adjuncts may exist in languages that do not have an AC

(anymore) it seems impossible for a language to use ACs without also making use of free adjuncts a steep decline in free adjunct use as in Dutch will almost certainly be reflected in a similar decline in AC use

predicative adverbial SS use (i.e. free adjunct) absolutes

object nexus

Attributive/apposition

Overlap: gerunds

(4) I don't claim to know that God exists, I only claim that he does without my knowing it, and while I claim as much I do not claim to know as much; indeed i cannot know and God knows I cannot. (Leuven drama corpus, Jumpers, 1972) (NO AC, gerund)(5) Life was fraught enough for the Stevenses as it was, with the constant care of Jennifer, without her adding to their problems. (BNC False impressions. 1990)(6) Nobody walks out of there without me saying, Yes it's good for you. (BNC, interview, 1991)(7) He loved to wake and hear the large house stirring, with himself enfolded in it. (BNC, Van Gogh: a life, 1990)(8)The first part of Gaudium et Spes returns again and again to the theme of Christ, the New Adam who fully reveals man to man, himself making man's vocation clear (BNC Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and after 1991)(9) … but it had never occurred to her, she being neither proud nor ashamed of it, nor even thinking it very out of the ordinary. (BNC, King Solomon's carpet, 1992) (prototypical unaugmented AC)GE

RU

ND

LIK

E F

OR

M

TYP

ICA

L A

C F

OR

M

Overlap: gerunds• Dutch never had a gerund (König 1994: 559) and thus lacks this anchor for the

AC to connect with other elements of the language system• Combined with the loss of the Dutch progressive and the fact that the Dutch

free adjunct is much less common, this may explain the huge discrepancy in frequency of present-participle predicates in Dutch and English ACs

9%

23%

3%9%

53%

4%

Present-day Dutch

adjectiveadverbnoun phrasepast participleprepositional phrasepresent participle

10%5%

2%

19%

21%

41%

1% 1%

Present-day English

adjectiveadverbnoun phrasepast participleprepositional phrasepresent participleperfective participleinfinitive

Overlap: prepositional postmodifiers• English

(10) He showed us a toy that he had made as a boy: a little square box of painted wood with a glass panel (NO AC, prepositional phrase as postmodifier) (adapted from BNC 1991)

(11) He showed us a toy that he had made as a boy: a little square box of painted wood with a glass panel on top (adapted from BNC 1991)

(12) He is downstage, with his back to her (BNC, 1970)

(13) They all meet midstage, turn upstage to walk, HAMLET in the middle, arm over each shoulder. (BNC, 1986) (prototypical unaugmented AC with prepositional phrase predicate)

TYP

ICA

L A

C U

SE

PO

STM

OD

IFIE

R L

IKE

US

E

Overlap: prepositional postmodifiers• Dutch

(14) De zwart-wit geblokte gootsteen met de barst. (NO AC, prepositional phrase as postmodifier) (adapted from DBNL, 1995)

‘sink with the crack’(15) De zwart-wit geblokte gootsteen met de barst in het midden. (DBNL, 1995)‘sink with the crack in the middle’(16) Obama daarentegen kon rekenen op miljoenen aanwezigen, die met tranen in de ogen getuige waren van de historische eedaflegging. (DBNL, 2009)‘with tears in their eyes’(17) Ik zat net te lezen bij het elektrische kacheltje toen mijn gastheer verscheen, de herder op zijn hielen. (DBNL, 1994)‘the shepherd on his heels’ (prototypical unaugmented AC with prepositional phrase predicate)

TYP

ICA

L A

C U

SE

PO

STM

OD

IFIE

R L

IKE

US

E

Overlap: prepositional postmodifiers• Connection between the AC and the rest of the language

system• Both in English and Dutch• Only anchor for the Dutch AC high frequency of prepositional phrase predicates and adverbial predicates in Dutch ↔ English

• Met-augmented ACs are biased towards the use of prepositional phrase predicates (31% versus 13% for PDE) augmentation is quasi-obligatory in Dutch, not so for English

Other Germanic languages• Danish

• Danish prescriptivism against Latin syntactic influence promoted parataxis above hypotaxis (Killie 2006)

• No progressive with present participle form (Ebert 2000: 607; Betinetto et al. 2000: 528)

• No gerund (König 1994: 559)

• Norse• Old Norse had an AC similar to other older Germanic languages

(Bauer 2000:275)• heavily influenced by Danish prescriptivism in the 1700s • uses of its participle limited (Killie 2006: 452), e.g. lost its verbal

properties (Swan 2003)

Other Germanic languages• No progressive with present participle form (Ebert 2000: 607;

Betinetto et al. 2000: 528) • No gerund (König 1994: 559, Killie 2006: 466)• Still ACs with non-verbal predicates e.g ‘med håndkleet over

skuldrene’ ‘with a towel over the shoulder’ or ‘med hvert vårt glass’ ‘each with his own glass’ (Haff: 208)

• German• Old High German had a frequently used dative AC (Bauer 2000:

275)• Until recently (19th century) the AC was still fairly common in

German (Komen 1994: 103-108) • Prescriptive rejection was usually limited to non-coreferential-

subject ACs (Komen 1994: 103-108)

Other Germanic languages• These ACs were lost in Present-day German (Kortmann 1988:

67-69) e.g. * Seine Mutter eine Deutsche seiend, John …’ ‘His mother being German, John ….’

• In Present-day German, the AC’s functional and formal properties are more limited than those of English (cf. supra)(Kortmann 1988:69)

• As in Dutch, German ACs survive mainly in uses with non-verbal predicate types. (Kortmann 1988: 72; 85)

• The lack of a gerund (König 1994: 559) and a progressive with the participle (Ebert 2000: 607; Betinetto et al. 2000: 528) in combination with a less frequent use of free adjuncts are presumably also here the cause of gradual AC loss (cf. Dutch)

Conclusion

Conclusion• ACs (especially those with present participle predicates)

are much more common in English than in Dutch

• Reasons?o Primingo Overlap (Dutch reanalysis?)o Prescriptivism

Conclusion

Free adjuncts(clear boundary)

Gerunds(overlap)

Pr

og

ress

ives

(

cl

ea

r bounda

ry

)

Postmodifiers(overlap)

Englishabsolute

• Other Germanic languages: situation similar to Dutch • Norwegian and Danish: heavy prescriptive criticism against AC use

)

References (1)• Bauer, Brigitte. 2000. Archaic syntax in Indo-European. The spread of transitivity in Latin and French.

Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.• Bertinetto, Pier Marco; Ebert, Karen and de groot, Casper. 2000. ‘The progressive in Europe’. In Östen

Dahl (ed). Tense & aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 517-558.• Ebert, Karen. 2000. ‘Progressive markers in Germanic languages’. In Östen Dahl (ed). Tense & aspect

in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 605-653.• Fonteyn & Cuyckens. 2013. 'The development of free adjuncts in English and Dutch.' Leuven Working

Papers in Linguistics 2. 160-195. • Haeseryn, W. et al. 1997. Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst. Deurne: Plantyn.• Haff, Marianne Hobæk Haff. 2010. 'A contrastive analysis of absolute constructions in French, German

and Norwegian.' Lingvisticɶ Inverstigationes 33. 2. 208-223.• Hannay, Mike and Mackenzie, J.Lachlan. 2002. Effective writing in English: a sourcebook. Bussum:

Coutinho.• Killie, Kristin. 2006. 'Internal and external factors in language change: present participle converbs in

English and Norwegian.' Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 107. 4. 447-469.• Kohnen, Thomas. 2004. Text, textsorte, sprachgeschichte: Englische Partizipial- und

Gerundialkonstruktionen 1100 bis 1700. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.• Komen, J.H.M. 1994. Over de ontwikkeling van absolute constructies. Amsterdam: Buijten en

Schipperhejn.

References (2)• König, Ekkehard. 1994. 'English'. In Ekkehard König and Johan van der Auwera (eds.) The

Germanic languages. London: Routledge. 532-565.• König, Ekkehard and van der Auwera, Johan. 1990. 'Adverbial participles, gerunds and absolute

constructions in the languages of Europe. In Johannes Beclert, Giuluano Bernini and Claude Budart (eds.). 1990. Toward a Typology of European Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 337-355.

• Kortmann, Bernd. 1988. 'Freie Adjunkte und absolute Konstruktionen im Englischen undDeutschen.' Papiere zur Linguistik 38. 1. 61-89.

• 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.

• Loebell, Helga and Bock, Kathryn. 2003. 'Structural priming across languages.' Linguistics 41. 5. 791-824.

• Quirk, R., et al. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.• Ross, Charles Hunter. 1893. ‘The Absolute Participle in Middle and Modern English’. PMLA 8.3. 245-

302.• Swan, Toril. 2003. 'Present participles in the history of English and Norwegian'. Neuphilologische

Mitteilungen 104. 179-195.

References (3)• van de Pol, Nikki and Cuyckens, Hubert. 2013a. ‘In absolute detail: the development of English

absolute constructions from adverbial to additional-context marker’. ICAME. Santiago de Compostella, 22-26 May 2013.

• van de Pol, Nikki and Cuyckens, Hubert. 2013b. ‘Gradualness in change in English augmented absolutes.’ In: Giacalone Ramat A., Mauri C., Molinelli P. (Eds.), Synchrony and Diachrony: A dynamic interface. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

• van de Pol, Nikki and Cuyckens, Hubert. 2014. 'The diffusion of English absolutes: A diachronic register study.' In Davidse K., Gentens C., Ghesquière L. and Vandelanotte L. (eds). Corpus interrogation and grammatical patterns. Studies in Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Thank you!

Nikki van de Pol (nikki.vandepol@arts.kuleuven.be) Peter Petré (peter.petre@arts.kuleuven.be)

Hubert Cuyckens (hubert.cuyckens@arts.kuleuven.be)

KU Leuven – Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling/fest/