The ‘Total Transformation Alternation’ in the light of some Middle English data

Abstract

The ‘Total Transformation Alternation’ (Levin, 1993: 57) has been attested in Modern English only with the Turn Verbs, verbs such as CHANGE, CONVERT, TRANSFORM, and TURN. This paper presents data showing the alternation also to be attested for some of the Middle English Cooking Verbs, including SĒTHEN ‘to simmer’. Since the alternation is not found with all the ME Cooking Verbs, this appears to be evidence against the correlation of lexical semantics with syntax. However, the paper goes on to demonstrate that this alternation is also available to ‘Reduction Verbs’, including Modern English REDUCE. Before REDUCE was used in this sense, Middle English verbs such as SĒTHEN could denote reduction in volume. When they were so used, they could appear in any of the syntactic constructions of this alternation. The paper concludes by reiterating the importance of investigating semantic components, rather than concentrating exclusively on verb classes.