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In:Corpora and the Changing Society: Studies in the evolution of English
Edited by Paula Rautionaho, Arja Nurmi and Juhani Klemola
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 96] 2020
► pp. 277–302

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Changes in transitivity and reflexive uses of sit (me/myself down) in Early and Late Modern English

 | University of Helsinki
 | Stockholm University
Published online: 8 April 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.96.11var
Abstract
This chapter seeks to establish if the Transitivity Hypothesis (Hopper & Thompson 1980) can explain the variation in the use of two reflexive strategies with the verb sit in Early Modern English (e.g. I sat me down/I sat myself down) and the verb’s subsequent transitivization (e.g. he sat me down). By studying data from large historical corpora, we will re-evaluate the results of earlier research and establish why sit continued to be used with the simple reflexive strategy (i.e. with object pronouns) until the Late Modern period. In our analysis of the transitivization of sit (down), we focus on both micro-level semantic and syntactic factors and more general developments that have supported the transitivization of verbs in Late Modern English.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background and reflexivity in the history of English
    • 2.1Defining reflexivity
    • 2.2Reflexive strategies in the history of English
    • 2.3The Transitivity Hypothesis in the context of this study
  • 3.Corpora and databases
  • 4.Simple and SELF-reflexives with sit and the transitivization of sit down
    • 4.1Sit in the Early Modern period: Simple and SELF-strategies in the EEBO Corpus
    • 4.2Expressing telic and atelic aspect with the simple and the SELF-strategies
    • 4.3The transitivization of sit down
      • 4.3.1Overlap between sit and set and early examples of the transitivization of sit down
      • 4.3.2Recent developments in the transitivization of sit down: Evidence from COHA
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
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