3.3.1 The verb phrase and its complementation

3.3.1.1 The lexel

The lexel in the tags of verbs is chosen according to the lexicographical principles applied to dictionary entries. These lexels may contain a comment (see Section 3.2.4.1). Firstly, copular uses of be and have, as well as some other verbs (e.g. stand in the example below), have the comment {n}:

The semi-modal use of be in to be to + infinitive is also categorized as copular, and arrows are used to relate the two items to one another (>vi <v):

It should be noted that adjectival uses of present and past participles are also preceded by copular be, but in some cases, such as for the purposes of research focusing on the passive, the user may want to re-examine these.

The comment {h} is attached to the auxiliary BE when it has been used instead of the auxiliary HAVE in compound verb forms:

The example above illustrates the fact that the scope of be as an auxiliary may extend to the coordinate past participle of a verb which normally has the auxiliary HAVE in compound verb forms. These cases can be found by searching for the comment {<syntactic merger>} (the arrows show whether the comment applies to the preceding or the following context or both).

In addition to these comments, semantic disambiguators occur as part of lexels, such as {allow} or {prevent} for the verb let.

The most frequent comments in lexels of verbs are the following (for a full list, see Key to comments):

*See the section on Latinate constructions

All inflectional morphemes have an empty lexel in the tagging system, making them easy to distinguish from derivational morphemes. The definition of the base and the inflectional morpheme is purely pragmatic, since allomorphic variation is easier to study by including in the ending such elements of the base which show variation in the data. Thus, allomorphic variation of the third person singular ending in the present tense can be illustrated using the following set of verbs:

Similarly, there is variation of the following kind in the attested -ing forms:

3.3.1.2 The grammel

As regards the grammel, all verb forms have v as the intial element of the abbreviation: vi 'infinitive', vpsp 'present participle', v-imp 'imperative', vn 'verbal noun', vm 'modal auxiliary', etc.

• SUBJECT – VERB CONCORD
• THE PAST TENSE
• THE PRESENT AND PAST PERFECT
• THE PASSIVE
• THE PROGRESSIVE
• DO-PERIPHRASIS
• SEMI-MODALS
• NON-FINITE VERB FORMS
• MULTI-WORD VERBS AND VERB COMPLEMENTATION TYPES

SUBJECT – VERB CONCORD

The grammel of present tense forms in the indicative (vps) and the subjunctive (vsjps) provides detailed information about subject-verb concord by specifying number (1 in vps13<P+), person (3 in vps13<P+), the position of the subject with respect to the verb (<P+ in vps13<P+) (+ = immediately preceding or following; - = non-adjacent; < = in the preceding context; > = in the following context), and the structural type of the subject (P 'personal pronoun'; cnp 'complex noun phrase', n{app} 'appositive structure', Dis-n 'the nominal use of the demonstrative pronoun this', R 'relative pronoun', etc.).

Inflectional morphemes in verbs are separated from the base by + (e.g. writ+es), and the suffix is analysed separately.

As shown by this example, the grammels of inflectional morphemes repeat the information provided by the grammel of the verb. The verb think is tagged as a first person singular in the indicative with a pronoun subject, while the form of the verb be has been interpreted as a third person singular in the subjunctive with a pronoun subject in a nominal clause. The compiler/tagger of the CSC finds it appropriate to provide a tool for retrieving contexts of this kind for research on cognitive verbs and modality in their complementation.

In letters the first-person subject may remain implicit (Meurman-Solin 1992), as in the following letter-closing formulae (rests is used instead of I rest to introduce the second formula):

the \ lord be w^t you & grant vs ane Ioyfull meetting \ when & whair his will is rests \ Your ewer loueing & weell \ wishing Nepheu to death

With zero subjects of this kind, the number and person of the verb are deduced from the context, so the unexpressed subject is indicated by a tag-external comment {zero S}, but the verb tag assumes the subject to be in the first person singular:

A further point on subject – verb concord: zero is used for number when the subject is an indefinite pronoun, a collective noun or a clause, as well as with second person pronouns as polite address forms (P02N instead of P12N, etc.) or first person plural pronouns in the function of the so-called royal we (P01N instead of P21N, etc.). The following example illustrates concord between the indefinite pronoun any and the verb:

As also illustrated by this example, examples of inversion can be retrieved by searching for a tag-external comment. In addition to the comment {inversion>}, the comment {inversion indicating subordination>} should also be used in data retrieval.

In existential sentences, number and person are defined by the extraposed subject (here: anie thing), the rest of the grammel-final information being linked to the formal subject (here: ther) using the tag <S+. The comment {cond} indicates the subjunctive occurring in an adverbial clause of condition:

It is assumed that the general practice in Scottish Renaissance letters was to use the deferential second person singular pronoun in writing to one's social superiors, but there is no detailed information about this usage yet (for developments in English letters, see Nevala 2004). In the CSC, the practice is to use the grammel /P12_ (_ being the slot for case marking) for letters by parents to their children and the grammel /P02_ for all other letters.

Collective nouns are also indicated as such ({coll}); their number is given as 0 (a zero) in the grammel of the predicate verb:

Complex noun-phrase subjects with a pronoun head are tagged in the grammels of verbs as pncnp:

In the following example, the negative pronoun none as the antecedent in a relative structure is referred to as neg-pncnp+ in the grammel of the predicate verb (need), and number and person are analysed as 03 instead of 13:

When the numeral/pronoun one governs a complex noun-phrase subject, this is expressed in the grammel of the verb with the tag <qc-pncnp+:

Co-ordinate structures appearing as subjects are signalled in the grammels of predicate verbs by using & to indicate coordination:

Clausal subjects are indicated with cl+ (adjacent) or cl- (non-adjacent) in the grammel of the predicate verb:

THE PAST TENSE

Since the majority of verbs show no variation conditioned by subject type in the past tense, there is usually no information about subject-verb concord in the grammels of past tense verb forms, all past tense forms in the indicative being tagged by vpt. In other words, if no variation resulting from subject – verb concord is attested, information related to the subject is not provided in the tags of past tense forms:

However, the past tense forms of the verbs be and have are provided with more detailed tags:

Here, the copular be is given the grammel vpt02<P+, a past tense form of the verb (vpt) preceded by the polite second person (02) pronoun subject (P+).

Moreover, all past tense forms in the subjunctive (vsjpt) have an elaborated core property string (e.g. $be/vsjpt21<P+{cond} for 'if we were...'). This permits the user to retrieve more detailed information for research on the subjunctive.

THE PRESENT AND PAST PERFECT

The present perfect is marked with the comment {psp} and the past perfect with {ptp}; in both cases, this is attached to the grammel of the past participle:

THE PASSIVE

Information about the passive is provided by the comment {pass}, which is attached both to the past participle and the preposition and its complement, the agent:

As regards adjectival uses of past participles, problems caused by ambiguity have been overcome by adding the comment {pass} to these uses as well:

The verb be is categorized as a copula using the comment {n}, and the participial adjective has to-infinitive clause complementation. Users interested in Latinate constructions, in this case the object + infinitive construction (oblige somebody to do something), can design their search to take advantage of the comments added to the lexel.

THE PROGRESSIVE

The present participle in the progressive is marked with the comment {prog}.

However, there are also instances of to be going to with the meaning 'to intend', and these can be retrieved by searching for the pair >vi <vpsp (cf. the practice with semi-modals):

The subject of the clause is a personal pronoun in the first person singular (vpt11<P+). The present participle going (vpsp) is followed by an infinitive construction, and this is indicated by >vi. The infinitive is connected to the main verb by <vpsp, and, further, to its own prepositional complement by >pr.

There is a lot of variation in present participle forms in the progressive:

DO-PERIPHRASIS

The tag of periphrastic do in affirmative declaratives relates this verb to the infinitive using arrows:

In negative declaratives and questions, the comments {neg} and {q}, respectively, are added to the grammel of do:

Moreover, the absence of do in these two clause types is marked with the comment {zero do}:

SEMI-MODALS

As with the verb structures be to and be going to + infinitive discussed above, all semi-modals have been tagged using arrows to relate the elements to one another.

The indication of concatenation using arrows seems the most neutral way of tagging items with grammaticalization potential. Since only marked relations of this kind between verbs and infinitives have been signalled with arrows, it should be possible to successfully retrieve all the relevant instances that reflect the potential for grammaticalization of these items.

NON-FINITE VERB FORMS

Non-finite forms of verbs are tagged using vi 'infinitive', vpsp 'present participle' and vpp 'past participle', and are frequently accompanied by comments which provide futher structural, semantic or syntactic information or classify them according to the type of clause in which they occur.

The to-infinitive is treated as the default construction. The absence of the infinitive marker is indicated in two alternative ways: in cases where the infinitive marker is not repeated in coordinate structures, the tag-external comment {zero im} is used:

Here we have a case of ellipsis.

A different tagging practice is used to enable the user to distinguish this from instances of the so-called plain infinitive (or the bare infinitive), which mostly occurs as complement of verbs of perception and certain other verbs.

Thus, in addition to the tag-external comment {zero im}, plain infinitives can be recognized by the tag-internal comment {-im}, attached to the property vi.

The practice of providing information about clause type permits tailored searches which distinguish between, for example, non-finite adverbial clauses (/vi-av, /vpsp-av, /vpp-av), relative clauses ((/vi{rel}, /vpsp{rel}), /vpp{rel}), co-ordinate clauses (/vpsp{co}), and absolute clauses (/vpsp{abs}-av, vpp{abs}-av).

MULTI-WORD VERBS AND VERB COMPLEMENTATION TYPES

The so-called multi-word verbs (i.e. prepositional verbs, phrasal verbs and phrasal-prepositional verbs) are tagged to indicate typologically relevant relations between verbs, adverbial particles and prepositions (cf. the discussion in Meurman-Solin, Anneli 2000. 'Prepositional ditransitive types of verb complementation'. In: Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Papers from the Twentieth International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 20), ed. Christian Mair and Marianne Hundt. Amsterdam – Atlanta, GA, 243-253).

The tagging of the prepositional ditransitive structure make use of (something) permits the retrieval of this verb complementation type.

Similarly, in give to (somebody), the verb is tagged to indicate its relationship to the preposition:

The present tagger has also applied variationist principles to prepositional and non-prepositional realisations by indicating the absence of the preposition using a tag-external comment:

The aim here is to permit the study of the variational pattern consisting of the alternatives send (somebody something) and send (something) to (somebody).

However, since the main tagging principle is to indicate potential for semantic and/or syntactic reanalysis, a wide range of prepositional complements following verbs have been tagged in the same way as those which reflect semantic change (as a result of the preposition introducing an adverbial being reanalysed and attached to the verb more closely).

The practice of indicating relations is also applied to copular verbs:

As with relative structures, the relations that are indicated in the tag are those between the attributive pronoun, the verb and its prepositional complement, which functions as a predication adjunct in an SVA structure (be in [what] fear). The core property pr-cj relates to the fact that fear is a nominalization, and >pr-cj> (attached to what) and pr-cj<< (attached to in) to the fact that the preposition is stranded.

Arrows indicate the relations in the collocate be in season for (something) in the following example:

The relatively generous indication of links aims to permit as comprehensive an inventory of collocates with verbs as core elements as possible.