Environmental linguistics -- In dialogue with previous studies -- Theory and method -- The past tense -- The present tense -- Copularization of becume and weaxe -- Evaluation of the results
Summary
This monograph presents the first comprehensive diachronic account of copular and passive verb constructions in Old and Middle English. Loss of the high-frequency verb weorðan 'become' is explained as a result of changing word order in narrative during Middle English. The merger of is 'is' and bið 'shall be, is generally' into a single suppletive verb is related to the development of a general analytic future shall benally, the co-occurrence of multiple changes led to become and wax crossing a threshold of similarity with existing copulas, from which they analogically adopted full productivity
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes
Online resource; title from home page (viewed on July 9, 2014)
