Abstract

This chapter explores the frequency development of the subjunctive and its competitors, namely indicatives and modal constructions, in the adverbial clauses of a corpus covering the periods Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE). It also describes the influence of the parameters text category, adverbial clause type, and matrix verb on the realisation of the verbal syntagm of adverbial clauses. The corpus analysis shows that subjunctive frequency is surpassed by indicative frequency already in OE, whereas it keeps its ground against modal constructions until EModE. The biggest shares of subjunctives are found in the text categories STA (legislative texts) and IS (secular instruction texts), in clauses of condition and concession, and in matrix clauses with verbal syntagms realised by subjunctives and imperatives.

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