Cover not available
Part of
Space in Diachrony
Edited by Silvia Luraghi, Tatiana Nikitina and Chiara Zanchi
[Studies in Language Companion Series 188] 2017
► pp. 329–346

Source-Location ambiguity and incipient decline in the recent evolution of the English directional particle away

 | Aix Marseille University / LERMA Research Centre
This chapter reports on a corpus-based investigation of the evolution of spatial away over the Modern English period in the light of recent work on the expression of motion events. Three observations are made: firstly, a directional-locative polysemy develops, secondly productivity seems to stagnate, and thirdly, for a range of verbs, directional V-away seems to be being gradually replaced by V-off. The likely mechanisms behind these changes are discussed, and it is suggested that away may be an atypical directional particle in decline, possibly in the context of a reorganization or regularization of English directional particles.
Keywords: English, directional particle, motion event
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Away in present-day English
  • 3.The corpus and the data on away
  • 4.Recent evolution of away
    • 4.1Origins and trends
    • 4.2The development of locative away
  • 5.Potential decline of directional away
    • 5.1Idiomatization / lexicalization of V-away
    • 5.2Decline of V-away and autonomous away
    • 5.3 Away and off
  • 6.Possible motivations for an away > off shift
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.188.12lew
References (29)
References
Akimoto, Minoji. 2006. On the decline of ‘after’ and ‘forth’ in verb phrases. In Syntax, Style and Grammatical Norms: English from 1500–2000, Christiane Dalton-Puffer, Dieter Kastovsky & Nikolaus Ritt (eds), 11–31. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C.. 2004. English in Modern Times: 1700–1945. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Bourdin, Philippe. 1997. On goal-bias across languages: modal, configurational and orientational parameters. In Proceedings of LP’96, Bohumil Palek (ed), 185–218. Prague: Charles University Press.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J.. 1988. The Development of English Aspectual Systems. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.. 2006. From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition. Language 82(4): 711–733.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Claridge, Claudia. 2000. Multi-word Verbs in Early Modern English: A Corpus-based Study. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creissels, Denis. 2006. Encoding the distinction between location, source and direction: a typological study. In Space in Languages: Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories [Typological Studies in Language 66], Maya Hickmann & Stéphane Robert (eds), 19–28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William, Barðdal, Johanna, Hollmann, Willem B., Sotirova, Violeta & Taoka, Chiaki. 2010. Revising Talmy’s typological classification of complex events. In Contrastive Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language 10], Hans C. Boas (ed), 201–236. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curzan, Anne. 2012. Periodization in the history of the English language. In English Historical Linguistics, Vol. 2, Laurel J. Brinton & Alexander Bergs (eds), 1233–1256. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 2001. Inflationary effects in language and elsewhere. In Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure [Typological Studies in Language 45], Joan Bybee & Paul Hopper (eds), 471–480. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fanego, Teresa. 2012. Motion events in English. The emergence and diachrony of manner salience from Old English to Late Modern English. Folia Linguistica Historica 33: 29–85.Google Scholar
Gries, Stefan T. & Anatol Stefanowitsch. 2004. Extending collostructional analysis: A corpus-based perspective on ‘alternations’. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 9(1): 97–129.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grinevald, Colette. 2011. On constructing a working typology of the expression of path. Faits de Langue. Les Cahiers 3: 43–70.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1999. Why is grammaticalization irreversible? Linguistics 37(6): 1043–1068.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hiltunen, Risto. 1983. The Decline of the Prefixes and the Beginnings of the English Phrasal Verb. Turku: Turun Yliopisto.Google Scholar
. 1994. On phrasal verbs in Early Modern English. Notes on lexis and style. In Studies in Early Modern English, Dieter Kastovsky (ed), 129–140. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hovmark, Henrik. 2013. Danish directional adverbs: Ways of profiling a motion event. In The Construal of Spatial Meaning: Windows into Conceptual Space, Carita Paradis, Jean Hudson & Ulf Magnusson (eds), 169–193. Oxford: OUP.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Imbert, Caroline, Grinevald, Colette & Söres, Anna. 2011. Pour une catégorie de "satellite" de Trajectoire dans une approche fonctionnelle-typologique. Faits de Langue . Les Cahiers 3: 99–116.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 2002. English particle constructions, the lexicon, and the autonomy of syntax. In Verb-Particle Explorations, Nicole Dehé, Ray Jackendoff, Andrew McIntyre & Silke Urban (eds), 67–94. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luraghi, Silvia. 2014. Plotting diachronic semantic maps: The role of metaphor. In Perspectives on Semantic Roles [Typological Studies in Language 106], Silvia Luraghi & Heiko Narrog (eds), 99–150. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
OED Online. 2016. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: OUP. 〈[URL]〉 (13 February 2017).Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna. 2010. Source–goal asymmetries in motion representation: Implications for language production and comprehension. Cognitive Science 34(6): 1064–1092.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Penzl, Herbert. 1994. Periodisation in language history: Early Modern English and the other periods. In Studies in Early Modern English, Dieter Kastovsky (ed), 261–268. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Poutsma, Hendrik. 1926. A Grammar of Late Modern English, Part II, Section II. Groningen: Noordhoff.Google Scholar
Rodriguez Puente, Paula. 2013. The Development of Phrasal Verbs in British English from 1650 to 1900. A Corpus-based Study. PhD dissertation, University of Santiago de Compostela.
Stefanowitsch Anatol & Rohde, Ada. 2004. The goal bias in the encoding of motion events. In Studies in Linguistic Motivation Günter Radden & Klaus-Uwe Panther (eds), 249–268. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Timothy Shopen (ed), 57–149. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar