The diachrony of the constructional networks of ‘wonder’ nouns

peer reviewedThis paper examines the diachronic development of constructions with nouns that denote something unexpected or astonishing. Specifically, it will compare constructions with marvel (1) and surprise (2) with those with wonder (3)-(4), which have been described in Van linden et al. (2016) and Gentens et al. (2016). The paper concentrates on constructions with complement clauses, cf. (1)-(4), and distinguishes between lexical and grammatical uses of complement-taking predicate (CTP) clauses (cf. Boye & Harder 2007). (1) So drastic a series of atrocities worried even Lord Burleigh, who compared them with the much-condemned Spanish activities in the Low Countries: “as things be altered it is no marvel the people have rebellions here, for the Flemings had not so much cause to rebel by the oppression of the Spaniards, as is reported to the Irish people” (WB) (2) Tyson soon integrated into that environment and the authorities misguidedly believed he was being rehabilitated thanks to boxing. And it was no surprise when Tyson was released early to go to live with D’Amato permanently. (WB) (3) It is a wonder to me that no one is laughing at the silly boots, but I suppose they have other worries at the moment, and so do I. (WB) (4) After all the scaremongering since September 11 regarding good versus evil, with us or with the terrorists, it is no wonder Arab-phobia has hit new heights. (WB) In (4), it is no wonder functions as a mirative qualifier, commenting on the complement proposition in terms of its (un)expectedness (DeLancey 2001). It can be paraphrased by an expectation adverb such as of course (Simon-Vandenbergen & Aijmer 2007: 172), and thus serves a grammatical function (Gentens et al. 2016). The speaker’s lack of surprise about the complement proposition is justified by the after-PP. By contrast, in (3) it is a wonder to me conveys that the speaker is very surprised, with the that-clause containing the presupposed factive proposition that s/he is surprised about. The CTP-clause in (2) expresses the speaker’s lack of surprise about the proposition in the when-complement. Note that – unlike in (4) – the expressions of (lack of) surprise in (3) and (2) are discourse-primary (e.g. they can be ‘addressed’ by ‘how much wonder/(of a) surprise is/was it?’) and thus show lexical use (cf. Boye & Harder 2007). In (1) it is no marvel functions as a mirative qualifier like in (4). This paper aims to inventory the constructions with ‘wonder’ nouns in Present-day English, as well as to study their diachronic development, investigating how marvel and surprise came to compete with native wonder when borrowed into English after the Norman conquest. It will also examine to what extent grammatical CTP-clauses have been in paradigmatic contrast with juxtaposed and parenthetical clausal structures or adverbial structures (cf. Gentens et al. 2016), with adverbials of the form negation + noun (e.g. no way, no doubt) already entrenched in Early Modern English as a constructional template (cf. Davidse et al. 2015). Data will be drawn from the Penn-Helsinki Historical Corpora, the Corpus of Early Modern English Texts, the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts and WordBanksOnline (WB). 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