The secret history of MUST

(1)

The secret history of MUST

Igor Yanovich

MIT

NYU February 8, 2013

(2)

Pipelines of meaning change

Modal meaning change is to a large extent regular:

from [van der Auwera and Plungian, 1998]

(3)

Modal meaning change

Relatively well-understood changes:

Ability⇒Circumstantial⇒Deontic; Epistemic Can I have an apple?

“Objective” flavor⇒“Subjective” flavor

e.g., from reporting obligations to imposing them performatively

An unparalleled and understudied change in Germanic:

Possibility⇒Necessity

Englishmust, Germanmüssen, Dutch moeten

(4)

Two claims

1 Old English *motanwas a (non-ambiguous) variable-force modal The received view: *motanconveyed possibility

New analysis: *motanasserted openness of possibility, and presupposed that an open possibility will be actualized

2 Early Middle Englishmoten was ambiguous between necessity and not-quite-necessity.

Circumstantial unavoidability is the most frequent meaning A deontic meaning of “moral instruction”, “moral advice”

Marginal “openness of possibility” uses

Fossilized uses in wishes and under attitude verbs (not quite necessity)

(5)

The primary data

Early Old English (late 9th cent.)

The core Alfredian prose(Cura Pastoralis, Boethius’sConsolation of philosophy, Augustine’sSoliloquies), N=70

Laws of Alfred and Ine(a different genre; language likely to be more archaic than the Alfredian literary prose), N=22

Late Old English (11th-12th cent.) Peterborough Chronicle, N=18 Wulfstan’s Homilies, N=34

Early Middle English (2nd quarter of the 13th cent.) Ancrene Wisse, N=58

(6)

Old English *motan: the received view

The plan

1 Old English *motan: the received view

2 Reinterpreting OE data: Alfredian *motanas a variable-force modal

3 Early Middle English reality check: unavoidability and moral instruction

4 Further data from Late OE: attitude verbs and conditional consequents

(7)

So, what did must mean in Old English?

How do we know what a word meant in the past?

We have to rely on:

Plausibility of an interpretation in the context

Correspondences between the (Latin) original and its OE translation General principles of consistency

In the case of Early-OE*motan, scholars mostly agree that it usually signaled permission.

Later today, I will challenge that on the basis of an analysis of*motanin the core Alfredian prose.

(8)

Old English *motan

OE*motan ⇒ MEmoten ⇒ PDEmust

The Old English conjugation of*motan (idealized):

Indicative Subjunctive

Present Sg 1 m¯ot m¯ote

2 m¯ost m¯ote

3 m¯ot m¯ote

Pl m¯oton m¯oten

Preterite Sg 1 m¯oste m¯oste 2 m¯ostest m¯oste 3 m¯oste m¯oste

Pl m¯oston m¯osten

(9)

A quick and incomplete guide to OE pronunciation

Fricativesf, s, þ/ð, are voiced when between voiced segments, and voiceless otherwise. þ and ð are orthographic variants.

Examples: lifer‘liver’,hefig‘heavy’.

Before front vowels (i,e),cpalatalizes to [tS], andgpalatalizes to [j].

Examples: gicce(N) ‘itch’,cele(N) ‘chill, cold’

xis a variant forg.

scis read as [S] (cf.scip), andcgas [dZ] (cf.ecg).

Stress is usually word-initial, but verbalge-never receives stress.

(10)

The meaning of *motan: the received view

The consensus story:

1 Since the earliest OE,*motanwas ambiguous between possibility and necessity

2 However, in early OE necessity uses were marginal

3 The proportion of necessity uses grew slowly since the Early OE up to the 15-16th cent., when the possibility meaning disappears

Disagreements about certain details exist (cf., e.g., [Solo, 1977]), but the general story above is widely accepted.

(11)

The meaning of *motan: the received view

[Bosworth and Toller, 1898]: *motansense I: permission; sense II: obligation.

[Ono, 1958]:

In Beowulf (early OE, circa 8th century): 31 instance of “possibility*motan”, 1 instance of “necessity*motan”, and 1 unclear case

In Chaucer (late ME, 14th century): necessity uses 84%

[Goossens, 1987]:

48 permission vs. 14 obligation uses in a sample from late 10th cent.

[Tellier, 1962]:

in early OE*motansignals possibility created by some higher power (God, kings...) necessity uses become “well attested” in Ælfric (late 10th century)

inAncrene Riwle(13th century), M(iddle) E(nglish)motenmostly functions as a necessity modal, though it still has possibility uses in some contexts

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Exercise!

Try to translate these examples from Old into modern English:

(1) gedo make

me me

þæs so

wyrðne worthy

þæt that

ic I

þe you

mote

motan.pres.1sg geseon see.inf

(þe = God)

Translation:

(2) þæt that

gewyrð happens

[for for

þam the.dat

dysige]

folly.dat [þe that

ge you.pl

fægniað rejoice.pl [þæt

that ge you.pl

moton motan.pres.pl

sceppan create.inf

wone crooked

naman]]

names Translation:

Translation of the continuation of the sentence: “...calling those things felicity which are not such and that excellence which is no excellence.”

(13)

Alfredian *motan as a variable-force modal

Where we are

2 Reinterpreting OE data: Alfredian *motan as a variable-force modal Modals do not have to be♦or

Variable-force analysis of Alfredian*motan

Variable force in Alfredian OE and in the Pacific Northwest

(14)

Alfredian *motan as a variable-force modal

Early Old English prose

Data sample: all 70 instances of*motan in the core “Alfredian prose”.

Three Latin books: Pope Gregory’sCura Pastoralis, Boethius’s Consolation of philosophy, and Augustine’sSoliloquies

Translated into Old English during king Alfred’s reign (late 9th cent.) or slightly later; the translations are free, to different degrees

BoeandSolare likely to have been translated by the same person;CP, probably by a different author; still, the three OE texts are likely to represent more or less the same milieu

See a recent overview of the problem of authorship for the “Alfredian” prose in [Godden, 2007].

(15)

Alfredian *motan as a variable-force modal Modals do not have to be♦or

How do we choose between ♦ and for *motan?

Recall the received view: OE *motanis usually a permission modal, but it also has a few obligation uses.

However, scholars disagree about the interpretation of some examples:

(3) Gif þu nu demanmostest, hwæþerne woldest þu deman wites wyrþran,< ... > OEBoethius, ch.38, p.112, ln.28 in [Sedgefield, 1899]

(4) Translation of 3 by [Sedgefield, 1900]:

‘If youhadstto decide, which wouldst thou deem the more worthy of punishment,’

(5) Translation of 3 by [Godden and Irvine, 2009]:

‘If now you wereallowedto judge, which would you judge worthier of punishment,’

NB! Both translations achieve the rhetorical goal.

(16)

More examples: ♦ or ?

(6) Ac but

se that

ðe which

unwærlice unwarily

ðone that

wuda wood

hiewð, hews,

&

and sua so

his his

freond friend

ofsliehð, slays, him

to.him bið is

nidðearf necessary

ðæt that

he he

fleo flee.subj

to to

ðara those.gen

ðreora three.gen

burga city.gen

anre, one.dat ðæt

that on in

sumere some

ðara of.those

weorðe become.subj

genered, saved,

ðæt that

he he

mote

motan.prs.subj libban;

live

‘But he who unwarily hews wood and by that slays his friend, it is necessary for him that he flee to one of those three cities, so that he be saved in one of them,

so that hemotelive.’ (CP:21.167.15)

“He” needs to flee so that it becomepossiblefor him to live.

If that does become possible, he willcontinue to live.

(17)

More examples: ♦ or ?

(7) He he

sealde gave

swiðe very

fæste firm

gife gift

and and

swiðe very

fæste firm

æ law

mid with

þære that

gife gift

ælcum every.dat menn

man.dat [oð]

until his his

ende.

end.

þæt that

is is

se the

frydom freedom

þæt that

ðe the

mon man

mot

motan.prs.ind don do þæt

what he he

wile, wants.to

and and

þæt that

is is

sio the

æ law

þæt that

[he]

he gilt pays

ælcum to.each

be by

his his gewyrhtum,

works,

ægþer both

ge and

on in

þisse this

worulde world

ge and

on in

þære that

toweardan, future.one,

swa or

god good swa

or yfel evil

swaðer whichever

he he

deð.

does

‘He[=God]gave to every man until his end a very firm gift and a very firm law with that gift. The gift is the freedom that the manmotdo what he wants to, and that law is the law that God pays to each man according to his works, both in this world and in the future world, be it good or evil that he does.’

(Bo:41.142.11)

God makes it possiblefor humans to do what they want, and they will.

(18)

More examples: ♦ or ?

(8) Mot

motan.prs.ind ic I

nu now

cunnian test

hwon a.little

þin your

fæstrædnesse resolution

þæt that

ic I

þanon thence ongiton

learn

mæge can

hwonan whence

ic I

þin you

tilian tend.to

scyle shall

and and

hu?

how

‘MotI now test your resolution a little so that I could learn from what side I

should be curing you and how?’ (Bo:5.12.12)

The speaker asks forpermission; if it is granted, theywillfollow up.

(19)

More examples: ♦ or ?

(9) Hwæt, why!

se that

ðonne then

ne not

recð care

hwæðer whether

he he

clæne clean

sie, is.subj

[ðe or

ne not

sie], is.subj

se the

ðe that æfter

after ðære their

hreowsunga repentance

hine him

ryhtlice rightly

&

clænlice cleanly

nyle not.wants.to

gehealdan:

keep ealne

all weg way

hi they

hi them

ðweað, wash

&

ne not

beoð are

hie they

næfre never

clæne, clean

ðeah though

hi they ealneg

always wepen;

weep;

ealneg always

hi they

wepað, weep

&

æfter after

ðæm the

wope weeping

hi they

gewyrceað obtain ðæt

that hi they

moton motan.pres

eft again

wepan.

weep

‘Why, he who does not care whether he is clean or not, he who does not want to hold himself in proper ways and clean: always they are washing, and they are never clean, even though they are always weeping; always they are weeping, and after the weeping they make it so that theymotonweep again.’ (CP:54.421.14)

“They” make it so that theycan, and alsowill, weep again.

(20)

OE *motan as non-ambiguous?

Hypothesis: OE *motanis not ambiguous.

*motan conveys neither pure possibility or pure necessity.

However, as MnE lacks a parallel word, we have to translate *motan imperfectly, using possibility and necessity modals.

In the Pacific Northwest, there exist other modals roughly like that!

St’át’imcets’s deontic modalka may be translated by speakers into English as either possibility or necessity:

(10) lán-lhkacw already-2sg.subj

ka deon

áts’x-en see-dir

ti det

kwtámts-sw-a husband-2sg.poss-det

‘You must / can / may see your husband now.’

[Rullmann et al., 2008, ex. (31)]

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Alfredian *motan as a variable-force modal Semantic analysis of Alfredian *motan

The semantics of Alfredian *motan

*motan is a specialized word inCP,BoandSol.

*sculan(>MnEshall): 700 instances magan(>MnEmay): 1000 instances

*motan(>MnEmust): 70 instances

Non-variable-force “alternatives” to*motan:

*sculanis a frequent modal of deontic and circumstantial necessity.

Nomodalsconveying permission, butmagan may convey circumstantial possibility.

Non-modal ways to express permission: attitude verbs (lætan‘let, permit’,geþafian‘assent, allow’, etc.), nouns (leaf‘permission, leave’, þafung ‘consent, permission’), adjectives ((un)aliefed ‘(non)allowed’)

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The semantics of Alfredian *motan

What is true whenmotan(p) is asserted:

1) p is an open possibility;

2) ifp is open at all, then it will be actualized.

Cf. Present-Day English conjunctions “can and will”, “may and will”,

“can and should”...

(23)

Formal analysis: the actualization presupposition

Assertion ofmotan(p): p is an open possibility

Presupposition ofmotan(p): (p is open)⇒ (p happens) (11) [[motan]]^w,R=

λphs,ti [ defined iff∃w⁰(wRw⁰∧p(w⁰))→ ∀w⁰⁰(wRw⁰⁰→p(w⁰⁰));

when defined,∃v(wRv∧p(v)). ] whereRis an accessibility relation (which can be built from Kratzer’s modal base and ordering source)

One can formulate a slightly stronger presupposition ofcomplete collapsebetween

♦and: “the accessible worlds are either allpor all¬p”.

The weaker presupposition is enough to account for the data, though.

(24)

Any alternative analyses for Alfredian *motan?

1 *motan asserted pure necessity in all cases

2 *motan asserted pure possibility in all cases

3 *motan was ambiguous between♦ and

4 *motan had an impoverished meaning, similar to the inflectional subjunctive

(25)

Uniform pure- does not work

⇒ does not work for 6 or 7

⇒ terrible predictions regarding non-local negation (stay tuned for the facts on clause-mate negation)

(12) Forðæm Because

oft often

se the

mildheortaa mild-hearted

Dryhten Lord

swiðe very

hrædlice quickly

ða the geðohtan

premeditated synna sins

awegaðwihð, away-cleanses,

ðonne so.that

he he

him to.them

ne not

geðafað permit

ðæt that hi

they hi them

ðurhtion carry.out

moten.

motan.prs

OK‘Because the merciful Lord often washes premeditated sins away quickly, so that as a result he does not allow them that theymotencarry those sins

out.’ (CP:53.419.1)

∗‘...God does not allow them that they have tocarry those sins out.’

(26)

Uniform pure- ♦ does not work

2 *motan asserted pure possibility in all cases close to our analysis, so harder to argue against

Under pure-♦, it is hard to explain the very restricted distribution of

*motan, compared to the regular♦-modalmagan

Latin sources for*motan-clauses inCura Pastoralisalmost never feature possibility modals (only 1 time out of 16)

(13) a. (Patres quidem carnis nostrae habuimus eruditores, et reverebamur eos;) non multo magis obtemperabimus Patri spirituum, etvivemus?

b. Hu how

micle much

suiðor more

sculon shall

we we

ðonne then

beon be

gehiersume obedient

ðæm to.him

ðe who

ure we.gen gæsta

spirits.gen Fæder father

bið is

wið ðæm ðæt so that

we we

moten motan.prs

libban live

on on

ecnesse!

eternity

‘Then how much more must we obey the father of our souls so that we

motenlive eternally’ (CP:36.255.8)

(27)

♦ - ambiguity does not work

No clues for ambiguity resolution (e.g., translators disagree) Why would an ambiguous modal appear only in contexts

where the♦-distinction is not very sharp?

Cannot explain well interaction with clause-mate negation All 18 examples with clause-mate negation convey impossibility Under our meaning in 11, that is predicted with either scope.

Whereas under the ambiguity theory we need to say:

1 When*motan=♦, the scope is fixed as¬>♦

2 When*motan=, the scope is fixed as>¬

⇒The variable-force analysis is much simpler.

(28)

The periphrastic-subjunctive theory does not work

4 *motan had an impoverished, subjunctive-like meaning

Up side: can explain correspondences like (motan libban)-vivemus Down side: cannot explain the limited distribution, and the semantic contribution of*motanin, e.g., 8 and 9. Cf. also [Ogawa, 1989].

For the laws of Alfred and Ine, though, the subj. theory makes more sense.

(14) Se that

ðe which

ðeof thief

slihð, slays.ind

he he

mot motan.prs.ind

aðe oath

gecyðan, swear

þæt that

he he

hine him

fleondne fleeing

for as

ðeof thief

sloge, slew.subj

‘The person that slays a thiefmotswear an oath that they them slew fleeing as a thief,’ (Ine 35) (15) Gif

if hie they

þonne however

þær there

næren not.were

oftor more.often

þonne then

æne, once

geselle pay

scill.

shilling se the

agenfrigea owner

&

and gecyðe,

swear.subj þæt that

hie they

þær there

oftor more.often

ne not

comen, come

be by

þæs the

ceapes cattle.gen

weorðe.

worth

‘If they[=the pigs]have not been there[=on somebody else’s property]more than once, the owner (of the pigs) should pay a shilling and swear that they did not come there more often, with an oath in the value of

the pigs.’ (Ine 49,1)

(29)

Summing up: variable-force fares better

⇒ 6, 7, non-local negation in 12

2 *motan asserted pure possibility in all cases

⇒ correspondences with Latin originals; general restrictedness

⇒ no resolution clues; clause-mate negation

4 *motan had an impoverished meaning, similar to the inflectional subjunctive

⇒ meaning too rich and too specific in many examples

(30)

Summing up: [Standop, 1957]

The new meaning is reasonably supported by the Alfredian OE evidence.

Further theoretical support: [Standop, 1957].

Most scholars never considered meanings other than ♦andfor

*motan. But Standop was an exception.

[Standop, 1957] argued that there was a very prominent third meaning of Old English*motanwhich was neither possibility nor necessity. He paraphrased that meaning as follows: “mir ist vergönnt, mir wird zuteil” (p. 69), “mir est bestimmt”

(p. 75), “mir ist zugemessen” (p. 169) (“it is granted to me, it is bestowed upon me”, “it is determined for me”, “it is measured out for me”).

Unfortunately, the later literature largely ignored Standop’s hypothesis.

(31)

Alfredian *motan as a variable-force modal Variable force in Alfredian OE and in the Pacific Northwest

Variable force in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest variable-force modals:

St’át’imcets, [Rullmann et al., 2008]

Gitksan, [Peterson, 2010], [Matthewson, 2013]

Nez Perce, [Deal, 2011]

Five analyses on the market:

[Rullmann et al., 2008]: with weakening, via choice functions [Peterson, 2010]: ♦with strengthening, via ordering sources

[Deal, 2011]: true♦, variable-force effects due to the lack ofdual [Kratzer, 2012], analysis 1: high-probability modal

[Kratzer, 2012], analysis 2: modal base consisting of a single world Brief conclusions:

Empirically, Alfredian OE does not seem to pattern with any other Theoretically, all 5 theories above do not fit the data from Alfredian OE

(32)

Early Middle English reality check

Where we are

(33)

Difference between OE *motan and ME moten

I argued that in 3 there is not much difference between♦and. (3) Gif þu nu demanmostest, hwæþerne woldest þu deman wites

wyrþran,< ... > OEBoethius, ch.38, p.112, ln.28 in [Sedgefield, 1899]

(4) Translation of 3 by [Sedgefield, 1900]:

‘If youhadstto decide, which wouldst thou deem the more worthy of punishment,’

(5) Translation of 3 by [Godden and Irvine, 2009]:

‘If now you wereallowedto judge, which would you judge worthier of punishment,’

(34)

A little taste of Middle English

Now we compare 3 with a Middle English conditional in 16.

Exercise! Translate the following two sentences into modern English:

(16) (AR 8:76-83)Beginning of the passage, in Modern English:

“You should have no animal but one cat only. An anchoress who has livestock seems more a housewife, as Martha was, she cannot easily be Mary, Martha’s sister, with her tranquillity of heart.”

For for

thenne then

mot moten.3sg

ha

she(=the anchoress)

thenchen think

of of

the the

kues cow’s

foddre fodder

<...>

Nu Now

thenne then

yef if

eani

any (anchoress) mot moten.3sg

nedlunge necessarily

habben have

hit, it(=a cow), loki

see thet that

hit it.nom

na-mon no-man.acc

ne not

eili ail

ne not

hearmi harm

(35)

Old and Middle English

Earliest Old English: mostly poetry

“Alfredian” OE: a massive program of translations, late 9th century Ælfric and others: an even bigger peak in OE text production, late 10th century

Norman Conquest: 1066

Early Middle English: c1100–1350

Small number of texts; non-standardized; reflects the multilingual realities of the time (English, French, Anglo-Norman, various Scandinavian dialects in the Danelaw region, etc. etc.)

Late Middle English: 1350–c1500

(36)

Caveat: the gap between OE and ME

Late OE manuscripts transmitted a standardized language, thus representing an earlier (and likely regionally restricted) variety.

OE was not comprehensible to Early ME speakers

The Tremulous Hand of Worcester (13th century) may have been a first conscious scholar of Old English. He made a lot of mistakes, and clearly misunderstood a large portion of his OE texts, even though he worked on them for decades.

Due to the conquest, the literary tradition mostly disappeared.

Therefore the few emerging texts were under less pressure to conform.

Middle English texts show a number of colloquial features that seemed to have been suppressed in late OE texts. This has been shown for Norse borrowings, and we can expect the same for more “grammatical” features as well.

(37)

Early ME: Ancrene Riwle

Ancrene Riwle(orAncrene Wisse): one of the largest early ME texts, written with a high degree of linguistic consistency.

Some scholars consider the language ofAncrene Riwlea regional standard of a sort (so called “AB language”), in a period where English writing was not much standardized.

(38)

moten in Ancrene Riwle

58 instances of moten; only 2 of them in negative clauses.

5 main types of uses:

unavoidability (circumstantial,≈modern “have to”) moral instruction (deontic, mostly performative) wish, prayer

“openness of the possibility”

embedded under attitudes

(39)

moten’s modal neighbors

ahen(>modern ought), rare

only deontic uses, mostly reportative sculen (>modernshall), very frequent

deontic uses, both performative and reportative future

“subjunctive” uses,≈modernwould

Sometimes moten,sculen andahenare used side by side, as synonyms or near-synonyms. But there seem to be numerical differences

regarding which is used more often in which kind of context.

⇒ Similar to modern sociolinguistic studies of deontic modals

(40)

Uses of moten in AR

Unavoidability: lack of other options, given the circumstances

⇒ Accounts for more than half of the examples.

(17) For sum is strong, sum unstrong, ant mei ful wel beo cwite ant paie Godd mid leasse. Sum is clergesse, sum nawt, antmotte mare wurchen ant on

other wise seggen hire bonen. (AR Pref:47-49)

‘For one is strong, another weak, and may be excused and satisfy God with less. One is learned, while another is not, andhas to(=has no other option but to) work more and say her prayers in a different way’.

(41)

Uses of moten in AR

“Moral instruction”: deontic

(18) < ... >teke this, hamotyet thurh hire forbisne ant thurh hire hali beoden

yeoven strengthe othre, ant uphalden ham, thet ha ne fallen i the dunge of

sunne. (AR 3:259)

‘...besides this, shemustalso through her example and through her holy prayers give strength to others, and hold them up so that they do not fall in the filth of sin.’

(42)

Uses of moten in AR

“Openness of the possibility”: several examples (≈5 out of 57) where we seem to have a genuine existential meaning.

(19) Thah the flesch beo ure fa, hit is us i-haten thet we halden hit up. Wa we moten don hit as hit is wel ofte wurthe, ah nawt fordon mid alle. (AR 3:231-232)

‘Though the flesh is our foe, it is commanded to us that we hold it up.

Woe wemaydo it as it is well often worthy of, but we should not destroy it altogether.’

(43)

Uses of moten in AR

Wish: occurs in prayers

(20) [I]the wurthgunge, Jesu Crist, of thine tweof apostles, thet ichmote over-al folhin hare lare, thet ichmotehabben thurh hare bonen the tweolf

bohes the bloweth of chearite (AR 1:145-147)

‘In honor, Jesus Christ, of your twelve apostles,mayI everywhere follow their teaching,mayI have through their prayers the twelve branches that blossom with love’

(44)

Uses of moten in AR

Under attitudes: meaning unclear, but not empty, and not pure

(21) Thet ich thurh the lare of the Hali Gastmotehalden foreward, he hit yetti

me thurh ower bonen. (AR 3:644-5)

‘That I, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit,maykeep the agreement, let Him (=God) grant it to me through your prayers.’

(45)

moten in AR: true ambiguity

Uses differ by modal force:

Unavoidability: circumstantial

Moral instruction: deontic (or priority-modality) Openness: some sort of♦

Wishes, attitude complements: clearly not

But it is not just the modal force that distinguishes them!

Wishes and attitude complements are clearly marked by the context.

“Openness” is more mysterious: there are very few examples in AR, so it is hard to determine the actual meaning conveyed.

(46)

From Alfredian OE to Early ME: rise of ambiguity

Alfredian*motan: non-ambiguous, variable-force modal Early ME moten: truly ambiguous betweenand not-

⇒ a previously unknown change trajectory!

(47)

Explaining the shift

Hypothesized shift trajectory:

“open possibility”? true variable-force

ks +3 !)

wish/prayer attitude complements

unavoidability moral instruction

The upper uses are archaic. They have been passed down “as strings”, though their semantics may have been reinterpreted.

Circumstantialresulted from reinterpreting the presupposition as a part of the assertion

Deontic arose later, and is still not the dominant meaning in AR

(48)

Data from Late OE

Where we are

(49)

Data from Late OE

Late OE data

Peterborough Chronicle, N=18

The latest chronicle continuing in Old English. Before the Conquest in 1066, several chronicles which mostly share the same text. But after 1080, only the Peterborough chronicle was continued, until year 1154.

There are only 2 examples of*motanbefore year 1000. Other 18 are written after that date, and thus represent very Late OE.

Wulfstan’s Homilies, N=34

Wulfstan, the archbishop of York, died in 1023, and left a substantial corpus of homiletic texts, as well as some political prose, which I did not yet examined, but plan to. Wulfstan is arguably the last non-anonymous substantial OE writer.

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Data from Late OE

Matrix vs. non-matrix clauses

Middle English

Ancrene Wisse: 29 out of 57 examples in matrix, non-conditional clauses (>50%)

Late Old English texts:

Peterborough chronicle: 1 out of 18 in a matrix non-conditional clause (and that sentence arguably features modal subordination)

Wulfstan’s Homilies: 7 matrix non-conditional instances out of 33 (≈21%)

Despite these differences, our Late OE data fall nicely in between the Early OE and Early ME data!

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Data from Late OE

*motan in the Peterborough chronicle

Distribution by (syntactic) context:

11 under attitude verbs (ask,grant,promise) 4 in purpose clauses

1 “pure” matrix, 1 conditional consequent 1 conditional antecedent

Semantics: most cases have the same meaning of “possibility that will be actualized” as in the Alfredian prose

(22) ne uppon trywðan geunnon þæt he mid griðe cumonmoste& faran. [1095]

‘nor would[the king]pledge his word that he[an earl]would beguaranteedfree coming and going’

But unlike in the Early OE prose, that meaning does not generalize across all contexts.

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Data from Late OE

Peterborough chronicle: other meanings

A couple of “subjunctive” (?) uses:

the source of deontic authority does not seem to be any particular worldly ruler, and it’s also not fate or God

the necessity component seems to be asserted rather than presupposed a complication: the two examples that are most likely to be in this category feature negation

(23) Ða wiðlæg Harold eorl his broðor & Beorn eorl, þæt hene mostebeon nan þæra

þinga wurðe þe se cyng him geunnen hæfde. [1046]

‘Then earl Harold and earl Beorn replied that he[=another earl]should not have the legal right to anything of those things that the king granted him.’

One case of circumstantial unavoidability

(though reinforced bynyde‘of necessity’)

(24) Ða gerædde seo cyng & his witan eallum þeodscipe to þearfe. þeah hit him eallum lað wære. þæt man nydemosteþam here gafol gyldan. [1006]

‘Then the king and all his fellowship agreed out of need, though they did not like it at all, that onehad toof necessity pay a tribute to the host.’

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Data from Late OE

Peterborough chronicle: other meanings

One teleological example, in a conditional consequent

(25) ac himostonmid ealle þes cynges wille folgian, gif hi woldon libban oððe land

habban [1086]

‘but theyhad tocomply with all the king’s desires, if they wanted to live or to have land’

One “destiny” use (archaic rather than innovative)

(26) & Gif hemosteþa gyt twa gear libban. he hæfde Yrlande mid his werscipe

gewunnon. & wiðutan ælcon wæpnon. [1086]

‘And if he[=William the Conqueror]were destined to live two more years, he would have conquered Ireland with his wisdom (alone) and without any weapons’

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Data from Late OE

Peterborough chronicle: summary

Most uses of *motanmore or less follow the Early OE pattern However, the few innovative uses suggest that the Early OE variable-force analysis is no longer applicable here

Little evidence for the inferred obligation hypothesis

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Data from Late OE

*motan in Wulfstan’s Homilies

Distribution by (syntactic) context:

13 instances (out of 33) under attitudes (allow,grant;earn,worthy) 6 instances in conditional consequents

6 instances in matrix clauses + 1 in a relative clause temporal clauses, concessive clauses, purpose clauses...

Semantics: there are quite a few “destiny”-flavored examples, but overall Wulfstan’s *motandoes not carry the old presupposition.

*motan in conditional consequents may be the source of a further re-interpretation of the modal as a priority modal inAncrene Wisse

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Data from Late OE

*motan in Wulfstan’s Homilies

What is destined:

(27) nu deofol sylf his mægnesmotwealdan, (cowulf,WHom_5:53.205)

‘now the devil himselfcan/wouldwield his power’

Collocationmagan and motan:

*motan= “absence of obstacles” or “not only can, but also would”?

(28) Utan andettan ure synna urum scriftan þa hwile þe wemagan & motan, & betan

& a geswican & don to gode swa mycel swa we mæst magan.

(cowulf,WHom_13:103.1278)

‘Let us confess our sins to our confessors, at an hour when wecan and would(?), and amend, and always stop, and do towards goodness so much as we most can. ’

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Data from Late OE

Wulfstan’s *motan: conditional moral instruction?

Hardly any circumstantial unavoidability examples — but that could be due to the fact Wulfstan mostly writes about religious matters

⇒Need to look at Wulfstan’s political prose (11 instances of*motanin it)

There is only one example which arguably features “moral instruction”:

(29) [And he liberated us through his death from the eternal death, and opened for us the way to the eternal life. We can now determine ourselves whether we earn eternal life and eternal bliss, or great death and endless misery.]

Witodlice witan wemotonhu we Criste geleanian eal þæt he for us & for ure lufan þafode & ðolode.

Certainly weshouldknow how we repay to Christ all that he for us and for the love of us consented to, and suffered.

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Data from Late OE

Wulfstan’s *motan: conditional moral instruction?

Teleological instances of motanin conditional consequents talk about

“moral issues”, about what oneshould do:

(30) Wemotannyde þæt stiðre þolian, gyf we clæne beon sceolan þonne se dom cymð, nu we þæne fyrst nabbað þe þa hæfdon þe wiðforan us wæron.

‘We of necessityhave tosuffer harsher if we were to be clean when the judgement comes, because now we don’t have what those who passed away before us had.’

(That is, because we don’t have enough time to spend in the purgatory before the final judgement, which people who died earlier had.)

(31) Leofan men, wemotanswyðe wærlice on ælce wisan us healdan gyf we us sculan wið deofol gescyldan,

‘Dear people, wemusthold[our faith]very truly in every manner if we were to protect ourselves from the devil,’

⇒ It is quite possible that the meaning of moral instruction was generalized from such conditionals.

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Data from Late OE

Wulfstan’s Homilies: summary

As in the Chronicle, most uses conform to the Alfredian OE pattern A possible source of the “moral instruction” flavor inAncrene Wisse:

teleological *motanin conditional antecedents

No evidence for an established circumstantial unavoidability reading No evidence in favor of the inferred-obligation hypothesis

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Data from Late OE

Late OE vs. Ancrene Riwle

General continuity through Alfredian OE ⇒ Late OE⇒ Early ME No clear evidence for circumstantial “unavoidability” in Late OE Not clear whether “moral instruction” arose from circumstantial or from teleological *motanin conditional consequents

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Data from Late OE

Future plans

For Late OE:

try to find circumstantialin other genres of writing For Early ME:

To understand “open possibility”: check the texts of the Katherine Group, sharing the dialect withAR

To understand the rise of “moral instruction”: possibly check Ormulum? (3rd quarter of 12th cent.,≈20K lines of verse)

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Conclusion

Once we depart from the♦-dichotomy, we find an interesting pattern in Alfredian OE

The new variable-force analysis is compatible with later developments (though it does not predict which exact way they would go)

Alfredian OE vs. Early ME:

unambiguous variable-force vs. true ambiguity

⇒addition to the cross-linguistic typology of variable force

⇒first evidence on the diachrony of variable force

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Thank you!

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References

Bosworth, J. and Toller, T. N. (1898).

An Anglo-Saxon dictionary.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Deal, A. R. (2011).

Modals without scales.

Language, 87(3):559–585.

Godden, M. (2007).

Did King Alfred write anything?

Medium ævum, 76(1):1–23.

Godden, M. and Irvine, S. (2009).

The Old English Boethius.

Oxford University Press.

Goossens, L. (1987).

Modal tracks: the case ofmaganandmotan.

In Simon-Vanderbergen, A.-M., editor,Studies in honour of Rene Derolez, pages 216–236. Vitgeuer, Gent.

Hasenfratz, R., editor (2000).

Ancrene Wisse.

Medieval Institute Publications, Kalamazoo, MI.

A searchable online version provided by TEAMS (The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages).

Kratzer, A. (2012).

Modals and conditionals.

Oxford University Press.

Matthewson, L. (2013).

Gitksan modals.

International Journal of American Linguistics, 79(3).

Ogawa, H. (1989).

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References

Old English modal verbs. A syntactical study, volume 26 ofAnglistica.

Rosenkilde and Bagger, Copenhagen.

Ono, S. (1958).

Some notes on the auxiliary*motan.

Anglica, 3(3):64–80.

Peterson, T. (2010).

Epistemic Modality and Evidentiality in Gitksan at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface.

PhD thesis, University of British Columbia.

Rullmann, H., Matthewson, L., and Davis, H. (2008).

Modals as distributive indefinites.

Natural Language Semantics, 16(4):317–357.

Sedgefield, W. J. (1899).

King Alfred’s Old English version of Boethius De consolatione philosophiae.

Sedgefield, W. J. (1900).

King Alfred’s version of the Consolations of Boethius. Done into modern English, with an introduction.

Solo, H. J. (1977).

The meaning of*motan. A secondary denotation of necessity in Old English?

Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 78:215–232.

Standop, E. (1957).

Syntax und Semantik der modalen Hilfsverben im Altenglischen magan, motan, sculan, willan.

Pöppinghaus, Bochum-Langendreer.

Tellier, A. (1962).

Les verbes perfecto-présents et les auxiliaires de mode en anglais ancien: (VIII^eS. - XVI^e S.).

C. Klincksieck, Paris.

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Appendix: how to search for stuff

Traugott, E. C. (1989).

On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: an example of subjectification in semantic change.

Language, 65(1):31–55.

van der Auwera, J. and Plungian, V. (1998).

Modality’s semantic map.

Linguistic Typology, 2(1):79–124.

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Types of resources for studying language change

Simple electronic editions of the older texts

Caveat: it’s important to know which print edition the text comes from, as old texts are usually printed according to the editor’s interpretation.

⇒ TheAncrene Riwledata for this talk come from [Hasenfratz, 2000], available online through TEAMS Middle English Texts Series.

Corpora of plain-text texts

Usually provide a balanced set of excerpts, with better coverage of genres and dialects.

⇒ E.g., the Helsinki historical corpus of English. There are also quite a few of more specialized corpora, e.g., the Corpus of Early Modern English dialogues (CED).

Corpora of morphologically tagged texts

E.g., the corpus of the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English 1150-1325 (LAEME).

Syntactically parsed corpora

⇒ The OE data were found using the YTH corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE).

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Searching the Penn parsed corpora

Parsed historical corpora for English:

Distributed free of charge throughhttp://ota.ahds.ac.uk/:

Helsinki-York Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence (PCEEC), c1410–1695

York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE), all OE prose

The Penn bundle:

Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English (PPCME2) Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (PPCEME) Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English (PPCMBE)

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Searching the Penn parsed corpora

Search tool: CorpusSearch 2, available free of charge http://corpussearch.sourceforge.net/

Calling CorpusSearch from the terminal:

java -classpath CS_2.003.jar csearch/CorpusSearch my_search_query.q PCEEC/2510/PCEEC/corpus/psd-cs2/*

This is for UNIX-based machines, like Mac OS. For Windows, the principles are the same.

See installing and running instructions at the project’s Sourceforge webpage.

NB: The terminal has to know the path to the .jar file in order to run it.

A simple query file motan-CP-Bo-Sol.q:

node: $ROOT

query: (MD* iDominates mo*) AND

(*cocura*|*coprefcura*|*boeth*|*cosolilo*|*coprefsolilo* inID)

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Searching in plain text files

The Helsinki corpus of English texts (available through OTA) The corpus is in simple text format. Therefore you’ll need:

⇒Your favorite text editor (e.g.,TextWrangler for MacOS)

⇒Preferably, command line search tools, or their equivalent

⇒A good dictionary, and preferably some knowledge of OE and ME orthography

Middle English Dictionary (MED): online and free of charge;

an excellent resourse!

Oxford English Dictionary (OED): your university might have subscription; less specialized, but still a very valuable tool

Dictionary of Old English (DOE): an ongoing project at UofT, A-G ready for now; requires subscription

The trick is to look for ALL possible spellings of the sought word!