The Evolution of the Periphrastic ‘Do’

王曉慧

Abstract： Most people are very familiar with the verb “do” today， but little knows about its usages in old English. It is important to review its historical development from dos Anglo？鄄Saxon roots to the common practice in the Middle English. Do developes out of the causative use of do. Do as an auxiliary functions in many English language conventions.

Key words： the OE Don； the emphatic use of Do； auxiliary Verb； causative Do

【中圖分類號】H31 【文獻標識碼】A 【文章編號】2095-3089（2013）05-0109-02

Introduction

The verb do is a hard？鄄worked word in present day English. It sees uses not only as both a transitive and intransitive verb， but also as an auxiliary particle in many English language conventions. As an auxiliary， it functions as an emphatic particle， a yes or no question marker， and a negative statement marker. When do occurs in examples like this， it contains no meaning on its own； this is called the periphrastic use of do. The following investigates the development of the do， and is based on Olga Fischer？蒺s chapter in the “Cambridge History of English Language”.

1. Uses of Don in Anglo？鄄Saxon

When we look back towards do？蒺s Anglo？鄄Saxon roots， its resume reads very differently. At this stage in English development， the OE don was PDE do？蒺s ancestor. Don was primarily used as a full lexical verb as in this example drawn from the Genesis story：

Uton…don hyne on tone ealdan pytt

‘Let us do[=put] him in this old well

But sometimes was also used as a stylistic substitution for another full lexical verb in a clause. These substitutions are known as the “anticipative” do and the “vicarious” do. Anticipative do precedes the full lexical verb as in：

utan don swa us mycel tearf is， habban afire rihtne geleafan

let us do what is necessary for us， （i.e.） to have the true faith.

whereas， the vicarious do followed the full lexical verb：

…he miccle ma on his dea？e acwealde， ？onee he ？r cucu dyde

‘…he killed many more in death than he did before.

2. Development of the Periphrastic

There are a large number of theories that identify causes for the introduction of the periphrastic do. Like all inductive endeavours， however， there is no clear path to the truth. Likely， there is a little bit of truth in almost all of the various explanations that have been put forth. The most general explanation that can be offered is， of course， related to the progressive loss of inflection in English. It only makes sense that when one method of conveying meaning disappears， other methods must be introduced.

It is only in the Middle English period that the periphrastic use of do comes into common practice. Linguists have provided many reasons for this development， saying that the emphatic use of do sprang up from borrowing from the Celtic or French tongues. But as Fisher makes clear， these theories are “generally ruled out”. It has also been suggested that the periphrastic developed out of one of the substitutive uses of OE don， but this theory is unlikely since substitutive examples of don are not often followed by an infinitive， and there are examples of periphrastic do that predate unambiguous substitutive examples that could be periphrastic.

3.The Likely Suspect： Causative Do

It seems likely that the periphrastic use of do developed out of the causative use of do. Alvar Ellegrd proposed that there were two related types of do constructions： one contained a noun phrase that functions as the object of do and the subject of an infinitive as in： “Te king dede te mayden arise”. This sentence is undeniably causative and means “the king caused the maiden to rise，” but there was another construction that Ellegrd called do x which had no such noun phrase， and therefore had an ambiguous sense of agency. Ellegrd illustrated that it was possible for a verb to express causative agency without the use of do however. Consider the statement “Henry…te walles did doun felle， te tours bette he doun”； “did felle” and “bette” both seem to express causative agency. If “bette” can be causative without do， then so could “felle”， and therefore， do may be semantically empty and periphrastic. Denison supported the theory by illustrating the existence of similar equivocation in present day English. The use of do as an auxiliary could also have been influenced by the copious number of analogues present in English.

Conclusion

This has been a brief account of the development of the periphrastic do， but it does leave many questions unanswered. How does the use of do in negative statements， emphatic statements， and in yes/no questions resonate with the dominant theories？ Can these features be ignored without leaving too large a gap in the theory？

Reference：

[1]Fischer， Olga. “Syntax.” [M]// Norman Blake The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol 2. New York； Cambridge University Press， 1992.

[2]Denison， David. English Historical Syntax： Verbal Constructions[M]. New York： Longman， 1993.

[3]Lass， Roger. The Shape of English[M]. London： J.M. Dent & Sons， 1987.

[4]Smith， Jeremy. An Historical Study of English[M].New York： Routledge， 1996.