On the Demise of the English Be Perfect Based on Diachronic Bible Versions
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There have been suggested many causes of the decline and demise of the BE perfect. First, language strategy to avoid ambiguity is suggested. Language is first of all an instrument of communication, so if a construction causes ambiguity, an obstacle of communication, then a way of disambiguation is sought. Second, the avoidance of heavy functional load is proposed in that language seeks for economy and to avoid a heavy functional load for a construction like the construction BE followed by a past participle, which can give expression to at least four different syntactic constructions, creating too heavy a functional load. Finally, counterfactuality proposed by McFadden and Alexiadou (205) is suggested as the catalyst for the eventual loss of BE. In the first half of ME, counterfactuals categorically required the auxiliary HAVE on the perfect. This requirement was strong enough even to override the otherwise categorical selection of BE by verbs like come, yielding their first appearances with HAVE. My data (Table I) also shows this in that only 17 cases in King James (1611) and 18 cases in Tyndale (1526) of the BE perfect appear, mainly with the verbs come and go. The final stage of the demise of the BE perfect has come with the road map of PE HAVE perfect (or HAVE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE), at least in conservative English like that of the Bible, as shown in the diachronic study of the Bible versions, is Preterit (Present) (OE), HAVE or BE PERFECT (Present) (ME, EModE), HAVE PERFECT (HAVE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE) (PE).
Abstract
There have been suggested many causes of the decline and demise of the BE perfect. First, language strategy to avoid ambiguity is suggested. Language is first of all an instrument of communication, so if a construction causes ambiguity, an obstacle of communication, then a way of disambiguation is sought. Second, the avoidance of heavy functional load is proposed in that language seeks for economy and to avoid a heavy functional load for a construction like the construction BE followed by a past participle, which can give expression to at least four different syntactic constructions, creating too heavy a functional load. Finally, counterfactuality proposed by McFadden and Alexiadou (205) is suggested as the catalyst for the eventual loss of BE. In the first half of ME, counterfactuals categorically required the auxiliary HAVE on the perfect. This requirement was strong enough even to override the otherwise categorical selection of BE by verbs like come, yielding their first appearances with HAVE. My data (Table I) also shows this in that only 17 cases in King James (1611) and 18 cases in Tyndale (1526) of the BE perfect appear, mainly with the verbs come and go. The final stage of the demise of the BE perfect has come with the road map of PE HAVE perfect (or HAVE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE), at least in conservative English like that of the Bible, as shown in the diachronic study of the Bible versions, is Preterit (Present) (OE), HAVE or BE PERFECT (Present) (ME, EModE), HAVE PERFECT (HAVE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE) (PE).
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