On the Absence of the Conjunction That in Late Middle English

Norihiko Otsu

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On the Absence of the Conjunction That in Late Middle English

In: English Corpus Linguistics in Japan

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Norihiko Otsu

Norihiko Otsu
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 225–234

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004334205_014

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Abstract

In the following paper, I investigate the presence or absence of the conjunction that in the dependent clauses by searching ME IV (1420-1500) of the diachronic part of the Helsinki Corpus. There are three main findings. Firstly, the construction without that was by no means rare but relatively common in the Late Middle English period, even when the dependent clause is accompanied by an adverbial like the if-clause. Secondly, this was due to the possibility that because indirect speech was not yet fully developed in this period, the dependent clause was connected to the matrix verb without the conjunction that as if it were direct speech. Thirdly, this kind of zero form occurred most frequently in speech-related text types such as ‘romance’ and ‘mystery’, where syntactic restrictions were less stringent. These three points combine to call into question the widely-held belief that the zero form spread slowly through Late ME and Modern English periods. On the contrary, it seems that we should rather consider the possibility that the zero form had greater chances of appearing at earlier periods in the history of English.

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English Corpus Linguistics in Japan

Series: Language and Computers, Volume: 38

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004334205

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2002

Subjects
- Languages and Linguistics
  - Applied Linguistics
  - Indo-European Languages

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On the Absence of the Conjunction That in Late Middle English

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English Corpus Linguistics in Japan

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