On the Use of that/zero as Object Clause Links in Early English Medical Writing

Abstract

That-deletion may be traced back to the first English written records, where the complementizer was usually omitted when the subjects of the main and the subordinate clause were the same or before a complement representing the exact words of the reported proposition (Mitchell 1985: §1976ff; Traugott 1992: 236–237; Fischer 1992: 313). Even though the complementizer zero gained substantial ground in the latter part of Middle English, its definite rise in English took place from the second half of the 16th century, being more prone in speech-based text types (trials, sermons) or in texts representing the oral mode of expression (comedies). After this sudden rise, the phenomenon is observed to plunge down drastically in the 18th century, plausibly as a result of the prescriptive bias of grammarians (Rissanen 1991: 279–287).The topic has been extensively researched in the history of English, with a number of specific studies discussing the linguistic factors conditioning the use of that and zero. In our opinion, however, the phenomenon has been mostly described in the period 1500–1750, particularly in drama and correspondence, fiction included. In the light of this, the present paper has been conceived with the following objectives: a) to analyze the use and distribution of that/zero as object clause links in a corpus of early English medical writing (in the period 1375–1700); b) to classify the phenomenon in terms of the two different varieties of medical texts, i.e. treatises and recipes; and c) to assess the participation of the following factors in this type of prose, i.e. the frequency of the predicate, the typology of the subject and the existence of intervening elements between the matrix verb and the object clause. The data used as sources of evidence come from The Corpus of Early English Medical Writing, i.e. Middle English Medical Texts (MEMT for the period 1375–1500) and Early Modern English Medical Texts (EMEMT for the period 1500–1700).