Abstract

This chapter deals with the frequency development of the subjunctive and its competitors as well as with their distribution across text categories in main clauses in the periods Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE). The results of the analysis of these parameters are interpreted as a change from a preferred weak type of root modality in OE to a strong type in ME, which is reversed in EModE. A more or less continuous frequency decrease of subjunctives from OE until late ME contrasts with a frequency rise of modal contructions and imperatives. Yet the frequency rise of imperatives is reversed in ME. The subjunctive is the preferred realisation of the verbal syntagms in text category STA (legislative texts) in all periods. The other text categories with big shares of relevant verbal syntagms have changing preferences of their realisations.

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