Abstract
This paper exploits the genre of witness depositions for an examination of the development of periphrastic do in the Early Modern English period. Depositions are speech-related texts, reports of authentic speech events related to a court case. Periphrastic do (in contrast to simple V , i.e., without an auxiliary) is investigated in terms of the parameters of time, and sentence type (affirmative, negative, interrogative, and imperative) against the background of previous research. Further potential linguistic and extra-linguistics factors influencing usage that are taken into account include type of verb, and region. The development in the use of the do -construction across time, and as regards the parameter of region, was found to be generally in line with previous research; however, monosyllabic verbs were found to encourage do -periphrasis, which is in contrast to previous findings.
Highlights
1.1 Background There has been much research on the origin and development of doperiphrasis in the field of historical linguistics (e.g. Ellegård 1953, Nurmi 1999)
In addition to comparing the relative frequency of periphrastic do to non-auxiliary V in different sentence types across time, this study looks at the degree to which linguistic and non-linguistic factors influence the use of dosupport
In order to demonstrate the development of do-periphrasis in depositions in the period 1560–1760 I will here present the quantitative data across time and sentence type
Summary
1.1 Background There has been much research on the origin and development of doperiphrasis in the field of historical linguistics (e.g. Ellegård 1953, Nurmi 1999). Much attention has been paid to the questions of when and why auxiliary do became a regular feature in the English language, and earlier studies have used both ‘constructed’ speech genres such as fiction and ‘authentic’ speech genres such as trials as sources to find the answers (see Section 3). The development of do-periphrasis in witness depositions ( depositions), the focus of this study, has received comparatively little attention in earlier research. Depositions are oral testimonies taken down by a scribe in writing in connection to a legal case and organized according to a specific format (see Section 2.1). The use of do-periphrasis tends to vary according to genre (Nurmi 2000). “Periphrastic do in English Witness Depositions 1560–1760.” Nordic Journal of English Studies 16(1):244277
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
