Constructions Waxing and Waning: A Brief History of the Zero-Secondary Predicate Construction

Abstract

In the English Secondary Predicate Construction (SPC), a predicative relation between a noun phrase (NP) and a “secondary predicate” (XP) is established by a main verb ( He finds Verb her NP attractive XP). While the syntactic nature of this construction has received ample attention from a synchronic perspective, this study aims to shed light on the diachronic developments of the SPC. First, using data from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE) and the Penn corpora, a classification is proposed of the verbs occurring in the SPC. Based on this semantic classification, the development of the SPC is then traced from Old English to Late Modern English in terms of frequency and productivity. It is argued that, while the various classes of SPC-taking verbs often show opposite developments, these lower-level incongruities are resolved at a higher schematic level, as the SPC as a whole underwent a process of internalization. These findings underscore the importance of lower-level developments in the diachronic behavior of schematic constructions and consequently contribute to the literature on constructional change.