A Usage-Based Analysis of the Distribution of Forth in the History of English

抄録

Abstract: This paper concerns the distribution of forth in the history of English based on a usage-based model of grammar advocated mainly by Langacker（2000） and Bybee（2006）. It has been pointed out that forth（forð in earlier English） developed aspectual functions in Old and Middle English. However, the newly acquired functions were short-lived and they were not fully established after early Modern English. It will be demonstrated that this kind of language change is “retraction” in the sense of Haspelmath（2004）, rather than （de）grammaticalization. Another fact to be explained in this paper is that forth has been replaced by other particles such as out and on in some phrasal verbs, whereas it has persisted in other phrasal verbs. Such a seemingly strange language change will be accounted for in terms of frequency effects, which play a pivotal role in storing and processing linguistic expressions in the brain/mind.