A Diachronic Syntactic Study of the English HAVE Perfect with Reference to The Imitation of Christ

초록

This paper aims to investigate the grammaticalization of the HAVE perfect from Old English (OE) to Present-day English (PE). Through the investigations reported in this paper and previous papers (Shin 2012, 2017, 2018),it has been found that there are three main streams of the grammaticalization of the HAVE perfect from OE to PE. The comparison between the Old Version(Middle English (ME)) (1441) of The Imitation of Christ and the New Version by Whitaker House (1981) leads to the conclusions set out in the following. First, the grammaticalization of the HAVE perfect from the OE preterit with the same function of tense and aspect is in progress in the Old Version (Late ME) and is finished in the Present Version (PE). Second, the grammaticalization of the HAVE perfect replacing the BE perfect is still in progress in the Old Version and is finished in the Present Version. Third, the grammaticalization of the HAVE perfect (progressive) from the OE simple present is still in progress in the Old Version and is finished in the New Version.

키워드