The Landscape of Middle English Focusing on the Adverb Even

Abstract

The study is aimed at exploring adverb even as the information structural component, viz., a Focus marker in Middle English records based on the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Functioning as an adverb already in Old English (OE), Middle English (ME) provides evidence to gradual transformation of even into an additive marker according to the following pattern: OE degree/manner adverb→ME restrictive particularizer→ME restrictive exclusive→ME scalar additive. The latter meaning in Present-Day English can be singled out on the ground of such semantic criteria of the Focus phrase as [+likelihood], [+additivity], [+scalar], [+givenness] and [+surprise]. The three types of focusing even registered in Middle English texts are analyzed in terms of information novelty and various Foci types marked by the adverb, as well as, syntactic arrangement of sentence constituents. Corpus studies revealed that depending on the sense, even pertains to a specific Focus type and may cause word order to change. Specifically, when the adverb is used in its Present-Day English meaning, it highlights predominantly mirative Focus, and the analysis of word order patterns indicates the fronting of X-element in the clause, which may be put down to the fact that this scalar additive stresses surprising or unusual context for the reader. Therefore, inverted arrangement of elements may be used for stylistic purposes.

Keywords

• Focusing adverbs
• scalar additive
• information structure
• Focus
• Topic
• word-order

References

1. Andorno, C. (2000). Focalizzatori fra connessione e messa a fuoco. Il punto di vista delle varietà di apprendimento. Milano: Franco Angeli. google scholar
2. Andrushenko, O. (2021). Corpus based studies of Middle English adverb largely: syntax and informationstructure. X-Linguae. European Scientific Language Journal, 4(2), 60-75. google scholar
3. Andrushenko, O. (2017). Information-structural impact on adverbial only evolution in the Middle English language. Science and Education, a New Dimension. Philology, 29 (116), 10-15. google scholar
4. Bech, K. (2001). Word order patterns in Old and Middle English: A syntactic and pragmatic study (PhD dissertation, University of Bergen). Retrieved from https://bora.uib.no/bora- xmlui/handle/1956/3850. google scholar
5. Bech, K. (2012). Word order, information structure and discourse relations: A study of Old and Middle English verb-final clauses. In A. Meurman-Solin, M. J. Lopess-Couso & B. Los (Eds.), Information structure and syntactic change in the history of English (pp. 66-86). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ acprof:oso/9780199860210.003.0004. google scholar
6. Borjars, K., Denison, D., & Krajewski, G., Scott, A. (2013). Expression of possession in English: The significance of the right edge. In K. Borjars, D. Denison & A. Scott (Eds.), Morphosyntactic categories and the expression of possession (pp. 123-148). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. google scholar
7. Brinton, L. (2017). The evolution of pragmatic markers in English. Journal of Linguistics, 55(2), 449-453. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0022226718000580. google scholar
8. Brunetti, L. (2004). A Unification of Focus. Padua: Unipress. google scholar

9. Cinque, G. (2006). Restructuring and Functional Heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clark, H. (1992). Arenas of Language Use. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. google scholar
10. Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (ME Corpus 2019). Retrieved from https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/. Ricca, D. (2017). Meaning both ‘also’ and ‘only’? The intriguing polysemy of Old Italian pur(e). In A.-M. De Cesare, C. Andorno (Eds.), Focus of additivity: Adverbial modifiers in Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages (pp. 45-78). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.278. google scholar
11. De Cerare, A.-M. (2015). Defining focusing modifiers in a cross-linguistic perspective. A discussion based on English, German, French and Italian. In K. Pittner, D. Elsner & F. Barteld (Eds.), Adverbs - Functional and diachronic aspects (pp. 47-81). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. google scholar
12. De Cesare, A.-M. (2017). On ‘additivity’ as a multidisciplinary research field. In A.-M. De Cesare & C. Andorno (Eds.), Focus on additivity: adverbial modifiers in Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages (pp. 1-22). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.278. google scholar
13. De Haan, F. (2012). Evidentiality and mirativity. In R. I. Binnick (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of tense and aspect. (pp. 1020-1045). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195381979.013.0036. google scholar
14. Falauj, A. (2020). Negation and alternatives: Interaction with focus constituents. In V. Depres & M. T. Espinal (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of negation (pp. 333-348). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi. org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198830528.013.18. google scholar
15. Ferrari, A. et al. (2008). L’interfaccia lingua-testo. Natura e funzioni dell’articolazione informativa dell’enunciato. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. google scholar
16. Forker, D. (2016). Toward a typology for additive markers. Lingua, 180, 69-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. lingua.2016.03.008. google scholar
17. Frascarelli, M., Hinterholzl, R. (2007). Types of topics in German and Italian. In K. Schwabe & S. Winkler (Eds.), On information structure, meaning and form: Generalizations across languages (pp. 87-116). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.100.07fra. google scholar
18. Gast, V. & van der Auwera, J. (2011). Scalar additive operators in the languages of Europe. Language, 87 (1), 2-54. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2011.0008. google scholar
19. Geurts, B., Beaver, D. I. & Maier, E. (2020). Discourse Representation Theory. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, metaphysics research lab. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ discourse-representation-theory/. google scholar
20. Giannakidou, A. (2007). The landscape of EVEN. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 25, 39-81. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11049-006-9006-5. google scholar
21. Gömez-Gonzalez, M. A. (2001). The Theme-topic interface: Evidence from English. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. google scholar
22. Haeberli, E. 2002. Inflectional morphology and the loss of V2 in English. In D. Lightfoot (Ed.), Syntactic effects of morphological change (pp. 88-106). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ acprof:oso/9780199250691.003.0005. google scholar
23. Haug, D. T. T., Eckhoff, H. M., Majer, M. & Welo, E. (2009). Breaking down and putting back together: Analysis and synthesis of New Testament Greek. Journal of Greek Linguistics, 9(1), 56-92. https://doi.org/10.1163/1566584 09X12529372103308. google scholar
24. Hill, V. & Alboiu, G. (2016). Verb movement and clause structure in Old Romanian. Oxford: Oxford University Press. google scholar
25. Jackendoff, R. (1972). Semantic interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. google scholar
26. Karttunen, L., & Peters, S. (1979). Conventional implicature. In Ch. Kyu Oh & D. A. Dineen (Eds.), Syntax and semantics, Vol. 11: Presupposition (pp. 1-56). New-York: Academic Press. Kay, P. (1990). Even. Linguistic and Philosophy, 13, 59-111. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/BF00630517. google scholar
27. Kirfka, M. & Musan, R. (2012). The expression of information structure. Berlin & New-York: Mouton de Gruyter. google scholar
28. Kiss, K. E. (1998). Identificational focus versus information focus. Language. Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, 74, 245-273. google scholar
29. König, E. (1991). The Meaning of focus particles: A comparative perspective. London, New York: Routledge. google scholar
30. König, E. (2017). Syntax and semantics of additive focus markers from a cross-linguistic perspective: A tentative assessment of the state of the art. In A.-M. De Cesare & C. Andorno (Eds.), Focus on additivity: Adverbial modifiers in Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages (pp. 23-43). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.278. google scholar
31. König, E. & Gast, V. (2006). Focused assertion of identity: A typology of intensifiers. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. google scholar
32. König, E. (1991). The meaning of focus particles: A comparative perspective. London: Routledge. google scholar
33. Krifka, M. (2007). Basic notions of information structure. Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure, 6, 1355. https://doi.org/10.1556/ALING.55.2008.3-4.2. google scholar
34. Lavidas, N. & D. T. T. Haugh. (2020). Postclassical Greek and treebanks for a diachronic analysis. In D. Rafiyenko & I. Serzant (Eds), Postclassical Greek: contemporary approaches to philology and linguistics (pp. 163-202). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. google scholar
35. Leroux, A. (2012). Even et quelques traductions en français: la référence à l’inattendu. LINX, 66-67, 35-50. https:// doi.org/10.4000/linx.1444. google scholar
36. Middle English Dictionary (MED 2021). Retrieved from: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle- english-dictionary/dictionary. google scholar
37. Neeleman, A. & Vermeulen, R. (2012). The syntactic expression of information structure. In A. Neeleman & R. google scholar
38. Vermeulen (Eds.), The syntax of topic, focus and contrast: An interface- based approach (pp. 1-38). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. https://doi.org 10.1515/9781614511458.1. google scholar
39. Nevalainen, T. (1991). BUT, ONLY, JUST: Focusing adverbial change in Modern English 1500- 1900. Helsinki: Societe Neophilologique. google scholar
40. Nevalainen, Terttu. (1994). Aspects of adverbial change in Early Modern English. In D. Kastovsky (Ed.), Studies in Early Modern English (pp. 243-260). Berlin & New-York: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/ 9783110879599.243. google scholar
41. Oxford English Dictionary (OED 2021). Retrieved from: https://www.oed.com. google scholar
42. Petrova, S. (2009). Information structure and word order variation in the Old High German Tatian. In R. Hinterhölzl & S. Petrova (Eds.), Information structure and language change (pp. 251-279). Berlin & New-York: Mouton de Gruyter. google scholar
43. Pintzuk, S. (2014). Phrase structures in competition: Variation and change in Old English word order. New-York: Routledge. google scholar
44. Rooth, M. (1985). Association with focus. (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts). Retrieved from: https:// scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8509599/. google scholar
45. Speyer, A. (2010). Topicalization and stress clash avoidance in the history of English. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. google scholar
46. Sudhoff, S. (2010). Focus particles in German. Syntax, prosody, and information structure. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. google scholar
47. Traugott, E. (2009). The semantic development of scalar focus modifiers. In A. van Kemenade & B. Los (Eds.), The handbook of the history of English (pp. 335-359). Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing. google scholar
48. Trips, C. (2002). From OV to VO in Early Middle English. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. google scholar
49. Wilkinson, K. (1996). The scope of even. Natural Language Semantics, 4, 193-215. https://doi.org/10.1007/ BF00372819. google scholar