Auxiliaries and Sentence Connectors

 

In Old and Middle English, auxiliaries are less frequent than in New English, as (10) shows. New English would have an additional auxiliary here, ‘What are you doing’:

10) What, how! What do ye, maister Nicholay?

How may ye slepen al the longe day?

New English tense and aspect are expressed through auxiliaries such as be and have. In (11), the auxiliary be and the -ing on the main verb express that the action is (or was) in progress; have indicates that the action started sometime in the past and continues up to now:

11) We have been practicing

Even though they are not as frequent, there are Middle English constructions, such as (12) where an auxiliary and the preposition on/an express that the action is ongoing. The first auxiliary do appears around 1400, namely in Chaucer’s (13):

12) þa cheorles wenden to þan wuden. and warliche heom hudden.

alle bute tweien. toward þan kinge heo weoren beien.

and iuunden þene king. þar he wes an slæting

‘The freemen went into the wood and took cover warily except for two [who] went towards the king where he was on hunting’

13) His yonge sone, that three yeer was of age

Un-to him seyde, fader, why do ye wepe?

The changes in the use of do are interesting. In (13), do is used as in New English, for support in questions (and negatives). In Middle and Early New English do was also more often used in regular affirmatives (e.g. I did see him) and might have expressed progressive aspect.

Related to the change in the status of verbs – many grammaticalize to become auxiliaries – is the change in the status of the infinitive marker to. Many linguists consider this to a non-finite auxiliary, indicating that the action of the verb following it is in the future or is unreal. When it becomes an actual non-finite marker (in addition to a preposition), it becomes more independent, and split infinitives start to appear in Early Middle English, as in (14) to (16):

14) fo[r] to londes seche  

for to countries seek – ‘to seek countries’

15) for to hine finde

for to him find – ‘in order to find him’

16) Blessid beþou lord offhevyn... Synfull men

for to þus lede in paradice

‘Blessed are you, heavenly lord, to thus lead sinful men in paradise’

There are also examples of split infinitives in Later Middle English, as in (17) and (18):

17) Ysay to ʒou, to nat swere on al manere

‘I say to you to not curse in all ways’

18) Poul seiþ, þu þat prechist to not steyl, stelist

‘Paul says, you that preach to not steal steals’

In Later Middle English, e.g. Chaucer, sequences of auxiliaries, as in (19), start to appear; the end of the 14th century marks a significant increase in auxiliaries:

19) If I so ofte myghte have ywedded bee

In Early Middle English, the connection between sentences is similar to that of Old English: sentences are less frequently embedded in each other than in New English. For instance, the already quoted (9) is from the beginning of Layamon; New English would have (b) or (c):

a. An preost wes on leoden; Laʒamon wes ihoten

b. A priest was living among the people and his name was Layamon

c. A priest, who was named Layamon, was living among the people

In (a), there is no connection between the two sentences; in (b), and connects the sentences through coordination; and in (c), one of the sentences is embedded into the other by means of a relative pronoun who, also called subordination.

A real increase in sentence complementizers such as till and for can be seen in the last part of the Peterborough Chronicle. Roughly after 1130, examples such as (20) and (21) appear:

20) for þæt ilc gær warth þe king ded

‘because that same year was the king dead’

21) þar he nam þe biscop Roger of Sereberi and Alexander biscop of Lincol and  te Canceler Roger hise neues. and dide alle in prisun. til hi iafen up here castles

‘There he [= king Stephen] took bishop Roger of Salisbury and bishop Alexander of Lincoln and chancellor Roger, his nephew, and put them all in prison till they gave up their castles’

Negation

As a last syntactic point we will explore the changes in negative adverbs. The Old English negative adverb ne reduces to a weaker word and is reinforced by a strong negative, starting in Old English. In Middle English, reinforcement by a post-verbal adverb such as nawiht (‘no creature’) is frequent, as shown in Middle English (22). Subsequently, the post-verbal negative becomes the regular negative not or nat, especially in late Middle English, as in (23):

22) for of al his strengðe ne drede we nawiht

because of all his strength not dread we nothing

for nis his strengðe noht wurd bute hwer-se he i-findeð edeliche

because not-is his strength not worth except where he finds frailty

‘Because we do not dread his strength since it is only relevant where he finds frailty’

23) He may nat wepe, althogh hym soore smerte

‘He may not weep, although he hurts sorely’

Multiple negatives, as in (22), are lost in Late ME, but the negative not starts to contract with an auxiliary, e.g. cannot, as early as 1380. The negative weakens and a second negative is introduced again in many varieties of English. This is known as Jespersen’s Cycle after the Danish linguist who first discussed it. It occurs in many languages: in French ne pas is losing ne in colloquial French.

With this knowledge about the sounds and grammar of Middle English, we can examine the beginning lines of Gawain (NW Midlands – Mid 14th century), provided in (24):

24)

SIÞEN þe sege and pe assaut watz sesed at Troye

Since the siege and the assault were ceased at Troy

Þe borʒ brittened and brent to brondeʒ and askez,

The battlements broken and burnet to brends and ashes

Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroʒt

the men that the plots treason there made/framed

Watz tried for his tricherie, þe treweston erþe

was tried for his treachery, the truest on earth.

His watz Ennias þe athel, and his highe kynde,

It was Aenias the noble and his high kin

Þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome

That afterwards conquered provinces and masters became.

The word order is modern, especially in the main clause: the subject þ e sege and pe assaut precedes the auxiliary watz and the verb sesed, which in turn precede the adverbial at Troye in the first line. In the second line, brent precedes to brondeʒ and askez, and tried precedes for his tricherie in line 4. In contrast, in the relative clause in line 3 the verb wroʒt follows the object þ e trammes of tresoun, a remnant of the older order. The verb bicome also follows its object in line 6 since it is part of a relative clause.

Definite articles are frequent and reduced to an invariant form þ e. The endings on the nouns are restricted to plural -ej, -ez, or es, but there may be a dative -e on erþe. The relative pronoun in line 3 is the Middle English þ at.

The spelling shows much evidence of this being a (Late) Middle English text: p and j occur, but æ and ð do not. The ʒ in borʒ may show palatalization and the pronunciation of sege and sesed includes the pre-GVS [e]. There are many loans from French: sege, assaut, tresoun, tricherie, depreced, and patrounes are all introduced from French in the Middle English period roughly with the spelling that occurs in Gawain. Later, alternations are made – etymological respellings by inserting the l in assault around 1530. The word try in its modern, legal sense is based on French, but this particular sense developed in Anglo-French. Tulk ‘man’ and trammes ‘plots’ in line 3 are Northernisms, possibly from Scandinavian.