This first chapter introduces the reader to the central research questions and hypotheses investigated in this book. In particular, it discusses the role that the morphologically and semantically related simple verbs (e.g. notice in the case of take notice of) may play for the semantic evolution of the CPs. It draws on previous literature, showing that not much has been done in the way of studying the role of the simple verb. Further, the chapter introduces other factors that may help predict or explain the evolution of the CPs. The chapter is rounded off by a summary of the book’s structure.

It is the purpose of Chapter 3 to outline the semantic and syntactic properties of the CPs under investigation (Section 3.1 and Section 3.2) and to make clear that each of the CPs investigated in this study has a morphologically (and mostly semantically) related simpler verb counterpart in the paradigm (Section 3.3). The chapter is rounded off by a presentation of the three central hypotheses of this study (Section 3.4).

While I have so far looked at semantic changes affecting the CPs under investigation, I now turn to the question of which types of syntactic changes these constructions go through. This change of perspective is driven by the question of whether semantic and syntactic changes run in parallel (see Scenario 1, Section 1.1), whether semantic changes proceed faster than syntactic ones in the sense of ‘form follows function’ (Scenario 2) or whether syntactic changes are primary and semantic changes set in later (Scenario 3).

The analyses presented in Section 8.2 show whether all those Type I-CPs which undergo semantic specialization/restriction (make answer to, make mention of, make use of, take leave of and take notice of; see Chapter 7) are part of the same scenario (either Scenario 1, 2 or 3) or whether they differ as to when semantic and syntactic changes set in. For a start, however, I place all CPs under investigation (no matter whether they undergo semantic specialization or not) on a scale that measures their degree of syntactic fixation in twentieth-century BrE (see Section 8.1).

Chapter 10 provides a conclusion and outlook. It summarizes how the three principles of competition, iconicity and economy of expression help to explain language change in the CPs. In addition, it asks how the findings obtained on the CPs and their morphologically and semantically related CPs can be transferred to other cases of competition (e.g. to phrasal verbs and their corresponding simple verbs). More than that, the present study adds to research on semantic–syntactic mismatches in cases of lexialization and provides new evidence on constructions which run counter to the trend of the English language to become ever more analytic. The latter findings tie in with such other cases of semantic competition as the gentive variation, the dative alternation or the comparative alternation.

Chapter 4 is devoted to the methodology applied in this book. For one, I motivate the choice of the twenty-four CPs investigated in this study and explain how they have been retrieved. Secondly, I ask how we can best operationalize the concepts of semantic scope and semantic specialization, which are relevant to test the first and the second hypotheses (Section 3.4). This presentation is followed by an introduction of the three different types of semantic specialization investigated in this study and an answer to the question of how they are operationalized. Here, I focus a) on the modifier slot (Section 4.3.1), b) on the determiner slot (Section 4.3.2) and c) on the wider assertive or non-assertive contexts that the CPs occur in. The chapter is concluded by an outline of the corpora in use, the time periods investigated and the statistical tests applied (Section 4.4).

Chapter 2 reviews previous literature on the evolution of composite predicates and discusses the relevance of these studies for the present investigation. While the present study is more interested in the semantic and syntactic changes that the CPs go through than in the question of whether they go down the path of grammaticalization or lexicalization, Section 2.1 briefly reviews how the evolution of the CPs has previously been classified as either type of development, with a only a few studies suggesting a combination of the two theories (Section 2.1). Next, I report on what previous research (on CPs) has to say on the notions of ’idiomatization’ (and its limitations) and ’specialization’ (Section 2.2). It is the latter concept that is the most relevant one for the present study. The chapter is rounded off by a review of how the NP status of the complements (e.g. use in make use of) may change over time (Section 2.3).

In Chapter 9, I offer a discussion related to the main theoretical contributions of this study. I here elaborate on how these findings tie in with three concepts known to be well-supported functional principles at work in various languages. These are the principles of competition, iconicity and economy of expression. As for the principle of competition, I unfold a model of competition that can account a) for the specialization and non-specialization of the CPs, b) for an interaction between the token frequencies of the simple verb and the strength of semantic specialization in the CP and c) for why certain CPs do not fall under the scope of the hypothesis. I also briefly discuss how psycholinguistic experiments on the activation levels of competing constructions can extend our perspective beyond cases of semantic competition. The principle of iconicity, in turn,can account for why formal and semantic changes do not entirely drift apart. Finally, speakers’ preference for shorter rather than longer expression helps explain why the simple verbs are preferred over the CPs in those contexts where they are in semantic competition.

In this chapter, I turn to Type I-CPs – that is, those CPs which have morphologically (and often semantically) related simple verbs that either show a strong increase in terms of their normalized frequencies or which have consistently very high frequencies of occurrence. I first test Hypothesis 1, stating that there is a correlation between the semantic scope and evolution of the CPs and that of their morphologically and semantically related simple verbs. The first analysis compares CPs with a semantic overlap to those without, asking whether both types confirm the hypothesis of a correlation between the semantic scope and evolution of the simple verb and that of the CP. Subsequently, I move on to explore which types of specialization apply to those CPs which have morphologically and semantically related CPs. I here look at changes in the modifier slot (Section 6.2), changes in the determiner slot (Section 6.3) and changes in the wider assertive and non-assertive contexts that these CPs occur in (Section 6.4). Finally, I ask whether the data analyzed allow us to make predictions as to which CPs specialize in which ways (Section 6.5).

In Chapter 5, I give an overview of the semantic scope and evolution of the simple verbs. This is done by accounting for their frequencies of occurrence (for the operationalization of semantic scope and specialization, see Section 4.2). While Section 5.1 provides the figures for present-day English (with reference to the frequency bands stated for each item in the OED), Section 5.2 opens up a diachronic perspective. By comparing the verbs’ frequencies of occurrence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, I am able to infer whether a simple verb has become more general in the course of time, whether it has specialized or whether it is hardly subject to any semantic changes. In one sense, Chapter 5 is therefore the first empirical chapter of this book. In another sense, the frequencies of the simple verb attested for in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries form the basis for predicting how the CPs will evolve during the same time span (see Section 5.3). In that sense, they form the input for an investigation into the CPs’ processes of ‘specialization’ or ‘no specialization’.

In this chapter, I discuss the semantic evolution of Type II-CPs. As in Section 6.1, I first explore whether CPs that have morphologically and semantically related simple verbs pattern differently from those that have only morphologically related simple verbs (Section 7.1). In a next step, I turn to an in-depth analysis of those CPs containing the light verbs take (Section 7.1.1) and make (Section 7.1.2), respectively. Other factors that may impinge on the evolution of the CPs are the frequencies of the light verbs (discussed in Section 7.2) and the frequencies of the head nouns outside the CPs (being the topic of Section 7.3). The chapter is rounded off by a synthesis, which gives the most important findings and looks at the prediction strength that can be assigned to the simple verbs.

The Introduction outlines the book’s six chapters. Chapter 1 presents the theoretical foundations of Generative Grammar and discusses the ‘prehistory’ of the concept of parameter in the late seventies and early eighties up to the formulation of the Principles and Parameters model of the Government and Binding (GB) framework. Chapter 2 examines the individual formulation of the main parameters that were proposed during that period, summarizing many of the central empirical concerns of research in the 1980s. Chapter 3 traces the development of the concept of parameter in early Minimalism, focusing on the debate over macro- vs. microparameters, the main criticisms raised against the parametric approach, and the latter’s subsequent reformulation within recent hierarchical models. Chapter 4 returns to the parameters of the GB Theory and evaluates their status in current generative theory. Chapter 5 is devoted specifically to the head-complement parameter, whose history arguably embodies the development of the parametric approach to linguistic variation. Chapter 6 draws the conclusions of the historical review conducted in the previous chapters and critically reconsiders the notion of parameter.

Chapter 5 is devoted specifically to the history of the head-complement parameter. The first explicit proposals in this respect are found in Graffi (1980), Stowell (1981), and Travis (1984). Then, attention is focused on Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom and its contribution to the crisis of the head-complement parameter. After considering Chomsky’s (1995a, 1995b) Bare Phrase Structure theory, the discussion turns to the two current main hypotheses about head directionality: on the one hand, that linearization applies in the PF component, as proposed by Richards (2004, 2008); on the other hand, that linear order is determined within narrow syntax, as put forth by Biberauer and Roberts (2015) and Roberts (2019). The chapter ends with a review of Donati and Branchini’s (2013) experimental perspective on linearization, which supports the idea that linear order is part of externalization rather than narrow syntax.

Chapter 6 draws the conclusions of the historical review conducted in the previous chapters and critically reconsiders the notion of parameter, reevaluating both its role in Generative Grammar and its theoretical status. First, concerning Linearization parameters like the ones responsible for overt vs. covert wh-movement and head directionality, it is argued that linguistic variation can be attributed to PF-interface conditions having a disambiguating effect on a specific set of syntactic representations which cannot meet bare output conditions. Second, considering Roberts’s (2019) reformulation of argument-drop, verb movement, and V2 as instances of head movement, it is argued that Chomsky’s (2021a) extra-syntactic account of head movement suggests the possibility of developing a unified theory overcoming the duality between the ‘syntactic parameters’ accounting for the emergence of null arguments and verb movement on one side and Linearization parameters on the other. Lastly, the possibility that variation can arise in the narrow syntax is also considered, followed by some final remarks on the latest views on parametric variation in connection with current minimalist assumptions.