Article published in:
Outside the Clause: Form and function of extra-clausal constituents
Edited by Gunther Kaltenböck, Evelien Keizer and Arne Lohmann
[Studies in Language Companion Series 178] 2016
► pp. 157–176

From clause to adverb

On the history of maybe

| University of Santiago de Compostela
| University of Santiago de Compostela
This chapter is concerned with the origin and development of the English epistemic adverb maybe. Using various historical corpora, including the Helsinki Corpus and ARCHER as a baseline, we analyse a range of structures featuring the sequence (it) may be, paying special attention to those which may have contributed, in varying degrees, to the emergence of the adverb maybe. We argue that the development of maybe can be regarded as an instance of grammaticalization, whereby a matrix clause in a complementation structure (it may be (that)…) is downgraded to a parenthetical, thus losing its original clausal morpho-syntactic features, and eventually becoming an adverb. Therefore, the adverbialization of maybe seems to have followed a similar path of development to that of (quasi-)adverbs such as methinks and looks like. We also argue, however, that even though complement-taking-predicate clauses are the ultimate main source of the adverb, via an intermediate parenthetical stage, other constructions (e.g. it may be + phrasal constituent) may have played a role in its development.
Published online: 03 October 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.178.06lop
References

Sources

ARCHER 3.2 = A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers version 3.2 1990–1993/2002/2007/2010/2013 Originally compiled under the supervision of Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan at Northern Arizona University and University of Southern California; modified and expanded by subsequent members of a consortium of universities. Current member universities are Bamberg, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Helsinki, Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester, Michigan, Northern Arizona, Santiago de Compostela, Southern California, Trier, Uppsala, Zurich.Google Scholar
BYU-BNC = Davies, Mark 2004- BYU-BNC. (Based on the British National Corpus from Oxford University Press). http://​corpus​.byu​.edu​/bnc/Google Scholar
CED = A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 2006 Compiled under the supervision of Merja Kytö (Uppsala University) & Jonathan Culpeper (Lancaster University).Google Scholar
CEECS = Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler 1998 Compiled by Terttu Nevalainen, Helena Raumolin-Brunberg, Jukka Keränen, Minna Nevala, Arja Nurmi & Minna Palander-Collin at the Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
COCA = Davies, Mark 2008- The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 520 million words, 1990-present. http://​corpus​.byu​.edu​/coca/Google Scholar
COHA = Davies, Mark 2010 The Corpus of Historical American English: 400 million words, 1810-2009. http://​corpus​.byu​.edu​/coha/.Google Scholar
DOEC = The Dictionary of Old English Corpus in electronic form 2007 Edited by Antonette di Paolo Healey. Toronto: University of Toronto.Google Scholar
HC = The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts 1991 Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki. Compiled by Matti Rissanen (Project leader), Merja Kytö (Project secretary); Leena Kahlas-Tarkka, Matti Kilpiö (Old English); Saara Nevanlinna, Irma Taavitsainen (Middle English); Terttu Nevalainen, Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (Early Modern English).Google Scholar
MED = Middle English Dictionary ed. Hans Kurath, Sherman M. Kuhn & Robert E. Lewis Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press http://​ets​.umdl​.umich​.edu​/m​/med/
OBC = Huber, Magnus, Magnus Nissel, Patrick Maiwald & Bianca Widlitzki 2012 The Old Bailey Corpus. Spoken English in the 18th and 19th centuries. http://​www​.uni​-giessen​.de​/oldbaileycorpus.Google Scholar
OED = Oxford English Dictionary Online. http://​www​.oed​.com/
PPCEME = Kroch, Anthony, Beatrice Santorini & Lauren Delfs 2004 Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English.Google Scholar
PPCMBE = Kroch, Anthony, Beatrice Santorini & Ariel Diertani 2010 Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English.Google Scholar
PPCME2 = Kroch, Anthony & Ann Taylor 2000 Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition.Google Scholar

References

Beijering, Karin
2010 The grammaticalization of Mainland Scandinavian MAYBE. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies 1. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward
1999 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Boye, Kasper & Harder, Peter
2007 Complement-taking predicates. Usage and linguistic structure. Studies in Language 31(3): 569-606. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J.
1996 Pragmatic Markers in English. Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 The Comment Clause in English. Syntactic Origins and Pragmatic Development. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. & Traugott, Elizabeth C.
2005 Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
De Smet, Hendrik, Ghesquière, Lobke & Van de Velde, Freek
(eds) 2013 On Mul–tiple Source Constructions in Language Change. Special issue of Studies in Language 37(3).Google Scholar
Dehé, Nicole & Kavalova, Yordanka
(eds) 2007 Parentheticals [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 106]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
①
Diessel, Holger & Tomasello, Michael
2001 The acquisition of finite complement clauses in English: A corpus-based analysis. Cognitive Linguistics 1: 97-141.Google Scholar
Elmer, Willy
1981 Diachronic Grammar. The History of Old and Middle English Subjectless Constructions. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fanego, Teresa
1990 Finite complement clauses in Shakespeare's English, I and II. Studia Neophilologica 62: 3-21; 129-49. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Olga
1992 Syntax. In The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. II: 10661476, Norman Blake (ed.), 207408. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007 Morphosyntactic Change. Functional and Formal Perspectives. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey, et al.
2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther
2007 Spoken parentheticals in English: A taxonomy. In Dehé & Kavalova (eds), Parentheticals, 25-52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 Processibility. In Corpus Pragmatics. A Handbook, Karin Aijmer & Christoph Rühlemann (eds), 117-140. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther, Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania
2011 On thetical grammar. Studies in Language 35(4): 848-893. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
López-Couso, María José
1996 On the history of methinks: From impersonal construction to fossilized expression. Folia Linguistica Historica 30(17): 153-169. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 Tracing the variation between perhaps and maybe in historical and contemporary corpora. Paper presented at ICAME 36. Trier, 27-31 May.
López-Couso, María José & Méndez-Naya, Belén
2014a From clause to pragmatic marker: A study of the development of like-parentheticals in American English. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 15(1): 66-91. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014b On the origin of clausal parenthetical constructions: Epistemic/evidential parentheticals with seem and impersonal think . In Diachronic Corpus Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 243], Irma Taavitsainen, Andreas H. Jucker & Jukka Tuominen (eds), 189-212. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014c Epistemic parentheticals with seem: Late Modern English in focus. In The Syntax of Late Modern English, Marianne Hundt (ed.), 291-308. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015a Evidential/epistemic markers of the type verb + complementizer: Some parallels from English and Romance. In New Directions in Grammaticalization Research [Studies in Language Companion Series 166], Andrew D.M. Smith, Graeme Trousdale & Richard Waltereit (eds), 93-120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015b On the haps and mishaps of happenstance expressions as a source of epistemic adverbs in English. Paper presented at SHEL-9 . Vancouver, 5–7 June.
Palander-Collin, Minna
1999 Grammaticalization and Social Embedding: I THINK and METHINKS in Middle and Early Modern English [Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 55]. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan
1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rissanen, Matti
1999 Syntax. In The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. III, 1476–1776 Roger Lass (ed.), 187-331. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Schneider, Stefan
2007 Reduced Parenthetical Clauses as Mitigators. A Corpus Study of Spoken French, Italian and Spanish [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 27]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Seoane, Elena
2012 Early Modern English: Syntax. In Historical Linguistics of English: An International Handbook, Vol. I, Alexander Bergs & Laurel J. Brinton (eds), 621-637. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Suzuki, Daisuke
2014 A historical study of modal adverbs: Evidence from a combination of diachronic corpora. Token: A Journal of English Linguistics 3: 187–210.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. & Mulac, Anthony
1991 A quantitative perspective on the grammaticalization of epistemic parentheticals in English. In Approaches to Grammaticalization [Typological Studies in Language 19(2)], Elizabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds), 313-329. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C.
1992 Syntax. In The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. I: The beginnings to 1066, Richard M. Hogg (ed.), 168289. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wischer, Ilse
2000 Grammaticalization versus lexicalization: Methinks there is some confusion. In Pathways of Change. Grammaticalization in English [Studies in Language Companion Series 53], Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach & Dieter Stein (eds), 355-370. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar