A Study Of The Diachronic Development Of Be/Have Paradigm

Have has long been regarded as the frequently used verb in English which possesses both notional and functional usages.As one of the complex classes with formal and semantic features,have is able to fulfill three syntactic functions,namely main verb(have),auxiliary verb(perfective have)and semi-auxiliary verb(have to).With respect to the auxiliary have,its main function is devoted to constituting perfect tense.However,from the perspective of the diachronic development,have is not the exclusive or predominant auxiliary to constitute perfect tense before the nineteenth century for it has experienced a fierce competition with the auxiliary be.Thus this diachronic competition has endowed it with great value to explore the diachronic development of be/have paradigm as the auxiliary of perfect tense in the history of English.To date,various studies abroad(studies at home seldom set foot in this field)are committed to explore the evolution of be/have paradigm as the auxiliary of perfect tense from OE to ModE and put forward all the possible have-promoting factors.Based on the previous accomplishments,this thesis puts emphasis on the properties of be/have paradigm in Four Tragedies of Shakespeare,Robinson Crusoe and Wuthering Heights respectively.To be specific,the study mainly concentrates on three questions:(1)What are the usage conditions of be/have paradigm in Four Tragedies of Shakespeare,Robinson Crusoe and Wuthering Heights respectively?(2)What are the working have-promoting factors in three works respectively?(3)What is the proportion of each working have-promoting factor in three works respectively?The significance of present study lies in two aspects: practically,the description and explanation of diachronic development of be/have paradigm fills up the blank gap of the congeneric studies at home to some degrees.What is more important,it provides a good deal of corpus resources for the further studies;theoretically,the whole study is guided by the grammaticalization theory and thus enhances the understanding of the theory.In the research process,qualitative approach is employed and statistical description is made.Linguistic data and statistics have been collected from the chosen three works.Major findings of this study are illustrated as follows:(1)In Four Tragedies of Shakespeare,the overall preponderance of be as perfective auxiliary is indubitable,evidenced by facts that the percentages are 62.3 for be and 37.7 for have with intransitives,71.4 for be and 28.6 for have with mutatives.Robinson Crusoe has yielded an appropriate overall have incidence of 53.2% and 51% with intransitives and mutatives respectively,thereby proving that the use of have as the perfect marker gains in momentum.In Wuthering Heights,the picture of be/have paradigm is rather reversed as compared with statistics obtained in Four Tragedies of Shakespeare.The overall be:have ratio in the whole novel is approximately 1:3,fully convinced by the percentages of the use of have with intransitives and mutatives are 74.8 and 74 respectively.Thus have has become the overwhelming predominant auxiliary for perfectivity.(2)In Four Tragedies of Shakespeare,only the factors of conditional contexts,durative contexts,iterative contexts,optative contexts,past perfect and perfect infinitive have taken into effect to promote the use of have as perfective auxiliary with mutatives.In Robinson Crusoe,only the factors of past perfect,perfect infinitive,conditional contexts and –Ing constructions have contributed to the increasing use of have with the mutatives.As for Wuthering Heights,the combinations of past perfect,perfect infinitive,conditional contexts,-Ing constructions,iterative and durative contexts have prompted have to outrival be on a grand scale and thus to be the predominant perfective auxiliary with mutatives.(3)In Four Tragedies of Shakespeare,conditional contexts have contributed 30 percent to the promption of the use of have.While durative contexts,iterative contexts and perfect infinitive account for 20 percent respectively.Past perfect and optative contexts exert little influence on the promotion of have,for they are assumed to take up 5 percent respectively.In Robinson Crusoe,the factors of past perfect and perfect infinitive relatively play an important role,accounting for 45.6 and 35 percent respectively,while conditional contexts and –Ing constructions take up 14.6 and 4.8 percent respectively.While in Wuthering Heights,the proportion of each working have-promoting factor can be listed out in sequence as follows: past perfect(65.5%),perfect infinitive(22.4%),conditional contexts(3.4%),-Ing constructions(5.2%),iterative contexts(1.75%)and durative contexts(1.75%).