Use of Auxiliary do in Early Modern English: Trials versus Comedies

English in Transition II 2020/2021 (5EN497)

Department of English

Mingrong Li
2020-06-17, Uppsala
 Table of Content
Page number

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………2

2. Corpus and Methodology……………………………………………………………...3

2.1 Corpus……………………………………………………………………………..3
2.2 Methodology………………………………………………………………………4

3. Presentation and Discussion of the Data………………………………………………5

3.1 Frequency of auxiliary do…………….…………………………………………...5

3.2 Do in four sentence types………………………………………………………….6

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….9

5. References……………………………………………………………………………11

1
1. Introduction
In Present-day English, the use of auxiliary do has been used not only to make questions
and negative statements, but also to emphasize and contrast in imperatives and
affirmative statements. In the early modern English period, there were a great many
differences in the use of do in various sentence types. Previous research investigated on
auxiliary do usage varies significantly in the field of historical linguistics: Ellegård (1953)
deals with two problems: the origin of periphrastic do, and the regulation of its use.
Klemola (1996) investigates variation and change in the use of periphrastic do in
affirmative sentences in the South-West of England, whereas Nurmi (1999) mainly
focuses on social variables (gender, age, social status, domicile, social mobility) and their
connection to the spread and regulation of do in Late Middle and Early Modern English.
Söderlund (2017) examines the development of do-periphrasis in witness depositions
from 1560-1760. His research focuses on investigating the use of do-construction from
two aspects the parameters of time, and sentence type. In addition, type of verb and
region as potential influencing factors are taken into his consideration.

The present study aims to explore the use of auxiliary do and the change of its usage in
four sentences types (affirmative declaratives, negative declaratives, interrogatives, and
imperatives) in Trials and Comedies at two early modern English periods (1600-1639,
and 1720-1760). On the basis of investigator’s limited historical linguistic knowledge and
small scope of corpus data, this study is only regarded as a pilot program.

There has been much research on the origin and development of auxiliary do as well as
on the social variables relating to its usage. As Ellegård states in his research (see
1953:155), that “in the 17th century the tide fell fast in affirmative declarative sentences,
whereas the use of do became regular in negative and interrogative ones. The modern
state of things was practically achieved around 1700”. Little attention, however, has been
paid to explore the distribution of do in EModE Trials and Comedies as well as the
changes of do in four sentence types over time. The scope of this study is to find out
answers to the following research questions:

2
I: Does Trials predominate over Comedies in terms of the frequency of do?
II: How frequent is auxiliary do in four sentence types?

2. Corpus and Methodology

2.1 Corpus
The primary material used in this research is A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560-1760
(CED), which was compiled by Merja Kytö(Uppsala University) and Jonathan Culpeper
(Lancaster University). The CED, with 1.2-million-word computerized corpus of EModE
speech-related texts, consists of 177 texts which are divided into five different periods:
1560-1599, 1600-1639, 1640-1679, 1680-1719, and 1720-1760. In this corpus, there are
two superordinate text categories, ‘authentic dialogue’ (e.g. Trial Proceedings and
Witness Depositions), which are taken down at the time of the speech event, and
‘constructed dialogue’ (e.g. Drama Comedy, Didactic Works, and Prose Fiction), which
are constructed by the authors. In this study, six Trials (total 36,950 words) and six
Comedies (total 57,860 words) are selected for the investigation of auxiliary do at two
periods (1600-1639 and 1720-1760, namely Period 2, and Period 5).

The texts from the Trials and Comedies that are dealt with in this study are shown in
table 1.
Table 1: Selected Trials and Comedies at two periods in CED.

Periods Text type File name Title Word count

Trials D2TBAST Censure ... of Dr. Bastwicke [etc] 2990
D2TLADYF Trial of the Lady Frances 640
1600-1639 D2THIGHC High Commission 6980
(Period 2) 10,610
Comedies D2CHEYWO How a Man May Chuse 9410
D2CBARRE Ram-Alle 9800
D2CSHAKE The Merry Wiues of Windsor 9000
Total 28,210

3
 Trials D5TCOOKE Tryal ... of Arundel Coke alias Cooke [etc] 5360
D5TLAYER Tryal ... of Christopher Layer 10650
1720-1760 D5TAMBRO Court-Martial...Captain John Ambrose 10330
(Period 5) 26,340
Comedies D5CFIELD The Historical Register 8790
D5CHOADL The Suspicious Husband 11340
D5CGARRI The Male-Coquette 9520
Total 29,650

As table 1 shows, two types of texts are listed with each individual text information,
including file name, short title, and word count. However, it should be pointed out that,
considering the limited scope of data, it might have an influence on the representativeness
of speech-related EModE variety. On the other hand, scribal intervention in Trials tends
to be limited to speaker identification and explanatory comments, while narrators are
considered as the only one limited intervention in Comedies. (See Lundén, Kytö and
Frycksted 2006:19).

2.2 Methodology
As mentioned in the Section 2.1, this corpus-based study is a quantitative study. In order
to analyze twelve texts collected from the CED, I count up the number of occurrences of
do in Trials and Comedies at two periods separately by using a freeware concordance
program AntConc, which is able to show search results in a ‘KWIC’ (KeyWord In
Context) format. Based on the list of a certain linguistic category from AntConc, I have
manually checked all listed instances and left unacceptable ones out (for example, if
search “do” in a certain period of time, unwanted “to do” appears in that category as
well). Note that the variant spellings of do should be searched for individually, for
example, doe, doo, and dost are variants of do, while do’s and doth for does. Then to
measure how the frequency of do occurred in two genres and what the distribution of do
in four sentence types (affirmative declaratives, negative declaratives, interrogatives, and
imperatives), I adopt normalized frequencies per 1,000 words to compare each category

4
results from samples of different sizes. Here is the formula used in this study (See
Garretson and Geisler 2019):
normalized result = result * (desired size / size of this corpus)

Abbreviations used are given in table 2.

Table 2. Abbreviations

EModE Early Modern English

PresE Present-day English
Aff. decl. Affirmative declaratives
Neg. decl. Negative declaratives
Inter. Interrogatives
Impv Imperatives
CED A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560-1760

3. Presentation and Discussion of the Data

This section is divided into two sub-sections based on two research questions that are
introduced in the Section 1 “Introduction”.

3.1 Frequency of auxiliary do.

This sub-section presents the comparison of occurrences of do in Trials with in Comedies
and aims to trace the overall development of do at two periods in EModE. Table 3.1
illustrates the distribution of do to answer the first research question: Does Trials
predominate over Comedies?

5
Table 3.1. Normalized frequency of do in Trials and Comedies at two periods (per 1,000
words).

Periods Trials Comedies Total

1600-1639(Period 2) 7.4(27.4%) 6.8(46.3%) 14.2(34.1%)
1720-1760(Period 5) 19.6(72.6%) 7.9(53.7%) 27.5(65.9%)
Total 27(100%) 14.7(100%) 41.7(100%)

Table 3.1 shows that the auxiliary do usage is generally more common in Trials than that
of in Comedies over two EModE periods and the change of use of do is much bigger
across two periods in Trials than in Comedies (with 27.4% to 72.6% versus 46.3% to
53.7%). Overall, in Period 2, auxiliary do is used in 34.1% of the cases while it occurs in
65.9% of the examples in Period 5. In other words, it is a fact that the frequency of
auxiliary do has nearly doubled the number from Period 2 to Period 5, at the same time,
do becomes more frequently towards the end of EModE in “authentic dialogue” (Trial
Proceedings) than in “constructed dialogue” (Drama Comedy).

3.2 Do in four sentence types.

The second research question is: How frequent is auxiliary do in four sentence types?
There are four main uses of do in PresE. (Söderlund 2017). Firstly, auxiliary do occurs in
negative declarative sentences (she does not know). Secondly, do-support is present in
affirmative statements (she did want to go). Thirdly, auxiliary do appears in questions
(does she know?), and finally, do-construction appears in imperatives (do not come in!)
where is a case of request. Therefore, in this study, do-construction are mainly
investigated in four sentence types (affirmative declarative sentences, negative
declarative sentences, interrogatives, and imperatives).

6
Table 3.3a. Normalized frequency of do in four sentence types in Trials and Comedies:
Period 2: 1600-1639 (per 1,000 words)

Sentence type Trials Comedies Total

Aff. decl. 3.5(47.3%) 3.9(57.4%) 7.4(52.1%)
Neg. decl. 2.8(37.8%) 0.6(8.8%) 3.4(23.9%)
Inter. 1.1(14.9%) 1.9(27.9%) 3(21.1%)
Impv 0 0.4(5.9%) 0.4(2.8%)
Total 7.4(100%) 6.8(100%) 14.2(100%)

As seen in table 3.3a, Comedies use do-construction more frequently with 57.4% in
affirmative declaratives than do with 47.3% in Trials. In negative declaratives, however,
Trials use do more freely (37.8%), while Comedies use do in 8.8% of the examples. In
terms of interrogatives and imperatives, the difference in frequency of do is not as great
as with first two sentence types. Overall, it shows that the total cases for auxiliary do is
7.4 in Trials where there is little difference from Comedies with 6.8 cases per 1,000
words. Moreover, affirmative declaratives have a comparatively high level of frequency,
whereas the use of do-support in imperatives is the relatively lowest. The following
examples will illustrate some usages of do in various sentence type. Example (1) presents
the use of auxiliary do occurring in the affirmative statements, while do in example (2)
used with negative marker ‘not’ constructs one negative declarative. The do-construction
is present in example (3) involving subject-auxiliary inversion and appears in affirmative
imperative where emphasis is needed for example (4).

(1) [Slender.]: I hope sir, I will do as it shall become one that would doe reason.
(Comedy, MERRY WIUES, 1623, p. 39C1)
(2) [L. H. S.]: What Humility and Grief you have confessed the fact, I do not doubt they
will signify so much to the King, and mediate for his Grace towards you.
(Trials, Lady Frances, 1616/1730, p. 334C2)
(3) With his long silke stockings was beheaded, Wilt thou do this? Referre it to my care.
(Comedy, Ram-Alley, 1611, p. C4V)

7
(4) [Bra.]: Do me this fauour now to marry me.
(Comedy, How a Man May Chuse, 1602, p. H3V)

Table 3.3b. Normalized frequency of do in four sentence types in Trials and Comedies:
Period 5: 1720-1760 (per 1,000 words)
Sentence type Trials Comedies Total
Aff. decl. 2.8(14.3%) 2.0(25.3%) 4.8(17.5%)
Neg. decl. 3.6(18.4%) 2.5(31.6%) 6.1(22.2%)
Inter. 13.2(67.3%) 2.5(31.6%) 15.7(57.1%)
Impv 0 0.9(11.4%) 0.9(3.3%)
Total 19.6(100%) 7.9(100%) 27.5(100%)

As illustrated in Table 3.3b, it is obvious that the overall frequency of do-construction in

Period 5 has nearly doubled the number of do usage in Period 2 (27.5 versus 14.2 per
1,000 words). Specifically, there is a predominance of do (57.1%) in interrogatives,
which differs from the use of do in Period 2 (52.1% in affirmatives) (see Table 3.3a),
then comes Neg. decl (22.2%), Aff. decl. (17.5%), and Impv. (3.3%) respectively.
Compared with the Comedies, the Trials contain more examples of do in affirmative
declaratives (2.8 in Trials versus 2.0 in Comedies per 1,000 words), which is the same as
do usage in negative declaratives (3.6 versus 2.5 per 1,000 words). Moreover, the data
suggests that do in interrogatives (13.2 in Trials per 1,000 words) is far more frequent
than all the sentence types in Comedies altogether, which might be relating to the
dialogue form in Trials, generally in question and answer format. Another four examples
selected from the CED illustrate various usage of do in four sentence types in Period 5.
Do in example (5) presents its function of emphasis to express the content of “I know”.
Although subjunctive mood is seldom used in Trials while in example (6) it indicates the
speaker’s hypothetical attitude towards the fact that is not real where do-support is given.
Subjective-auxiliary inversion happens a great deal of cases in Trials not only due to
question-answer format, but also due to do became the rule by the end of the seventeenth
century in negative interrogatives (Nevalainen, 2006). The example in (8) illustrates it

8
was quite common both in emphatic and non-emphatic contexts of use in the sixteenth
century (Nevalainen, 2006).

(5) [Frank.] I know but little of her, that’s certain. But all I do know you shall have. That
Evening was the first of her appearing at (bath).
(Comedy, Suspicious Husband, 1747, p. 11)
(6) [Daffodil.] She is now upon her last legs. If she does not run away with some foolish
Gentleman this Winter, she will return into the country, and marry her footman.
(Comedy, The Male-Coquette, 1757, p.46)
(7) [Prisoner.] Did not you make a demand on sir (Daniel)?
(Trial, Christopher Layer, 1722, p.61)
(8) [Mrs. Strict.] Do not be uneasy, my Jacintha. You shall always find a friend in me:
but as for Mr. (Strictland), I know not what ill Temper hangs about him lately.
(Comedy, Suspicious Husband, 1747, p. 8)

4. Conclusion
This corpus-based study of auxiliary do in Trials and Comedies at two EModE
periods has shown that the construction undergoes a change in usage over time and
the differences between two genres and between four sentence types are significantly.
My results signify that towards the end of the EModE period (1720-1760), the do-
construction has been used much more frequently than before and particularly in
Trials contexts, which corresponds to the results of pervious research.

In this study, two research questions introduced in Section 1 “Introduction” are

included. The first question is does Trials predominate over Comedies in terms of the
frequency of do? As we can see from previous quantitative data, it is the end of
EModE (Period 5) that stand out as regards the use of auxiliary do. However, what is
unexpected is that do is used more common in authentic dialogue Trials compared
with do used in constructed dialogue Comedy, which might be related to the fact that
periphrastic-do primarily appears more frequently in formal contexts.

9
The second question is how frequent auxiliary do is in four sentence types. It is
noteworthy that in most cases, do-construction is used in affirmatives across the
period 1600-1639, while preferred to the interrogatives by the last sub-period (1720-
1760). In addition, in both periods, the number of cases with imperatives is too low to
be studied separately. Overall, in comparison with Comedies, the occurrences of do
occur more freely in Trials across two periods. The construction, however, is most
frequent in affirmatives in Period 2 but in interrogatives in Period 5 with less
common in imperatives in both periods.

Use of auxiliary do will certainly continue to be one of the main linguistic topics
among researchers and scholars. Considerable research today illuminates the task of
origin of do and its change over time. We can expect that corpus-based research will
continue to help us better understand the use of do in comparison with non-use of do
in Verb Phrases or in different sentence types in the course of EModE period across
various genres. In addition, it is hoped that a replication of this small research is
suggested preferably on a larger scale with more sufficient data for further research.

10
5. References
Primary source
Kytö, M. and T. Walker. (2006), Guide to A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760.
Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 130. 107 pp. ISBN 91-
554-6456-4.

Secondary sources
Ellegård, Alvar. (1953), The Auxiliary Do. The Establishment and Regulation of Its
Use in English. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.
Garretson, Gregory and Geisler, Christer. (2019), Normalizing Results. Uppsala
University.
Klemola, K. J. (1996), Nonstandard Periphrastic Do: A Study in Variation and
Change. Ann Arbor: University of Essex.
Nevalainen, Terttu. 2006. An Introduction to Early Modern English. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Nurmi, Arja. (1999). A Social History of Periphrastic Do. Helsinki: Société
Néophilologique.
Söderlund, Anders. (2017). Periphrastic do in English Witness Depositions 1560–
1760. Nordic Journal of English Studies 16(1): 244-277.

11