Complement selection in Early English dependent desires: A look at commands and requests

Resumen

This article studies complement selection in dependent commands and requests in Early English as exemplified by the complements of the high frequency verbs biddan and be¯odan. Using data from the Old and Middle English sections of the Helsinki Corpus, the authors show that these two types of dependent desires behave differently in a number of respects, among them the following: (i) the greater complexity of requests, which, as opposed to commands, can appear in three different semantic types; (ii) the preference for commands to be coded by infinitival complements vs. the survival of the subjunctive until a later stage in requests; (iii) the wider range of modal verbs possible in requests; and (iv) the presence of downtoning expressions in connection with requests. Furthermore, the article provides evidence that, in the two types of dependent desires analysed, modals generally retain their primary modal meanings, and that only very occasionally is this modal meaning bleached.