1 Introduction
 
The English language, as for instance Swedish and German, forms perfect and pluperfect constructions by using an auxiliary together with the past participle of the main verb. The present paper deals with the use of the verbs be and have as auxiliaries with the past participle of intransitive verbs during the Restoration period in England. The construction, which can be exemplified with the sentence "He is grown" versus "He has grown", will be examined and some of the linguistic and extralinguistic factors influencing the choice of variant form within the paradigm identified.
 
The be/have+past participle (henceforth PP) construction has developed from an almost total domination of be with intransitives to the present situation where have is the only auxiliary used with PP of both transitive and intransitive verbs.
 
The Restoration period in English literature started with the restoration of the king in 1660 and ended approximately four decades later. This study encompasses a somewhat larger time span, since two of the comedies included in the corpus were written in the first decade of the 18th century. These comedies are, however, Restoration comedies of manner belonging to the same style as the other comedies in the corpus, and they serve to illustrate the point that periods in literature, usually, do not end conveniently at the turn of centuries.
 
Owing to time and space restrictions, some phenomena which might have made rewarding topics for study can only be hinted at. Much of the time allocated for the paper was spent reading texts and collecting examples.
 
 
1.1 Presentation of the be/have paradigm
 
The choice of either of the two variant forms in the be/have paradigm is governed by linguistic parameters, e.g. the negative forms or the choice of mood, which make up the contextual environment of the construction and influence it in favour of be or have. There may also be extralinguistic factors, such as the author's sex, the degree of formality, the rules set up in prescriptive grammars and the intended readers of the texts, that influence the choice of be or have. These other factors will be dealt with in section 4.
 
Text-book rules identify three functions which be + PP can have in a clause:
 
A: copula with a complement (he is worried)

B: auxiliary with a passive form of a transitive verb (he is carried)

C: auxiliary with an intransitive verb (he is grown)

 

Overlappings are frequent between these categories. This will be discussed in section 2.2.

 
Have + PP functions as an auxiliary verb with active forms of both transitive and intransitive verbs. No ambiguity as to the function of have can arise when classifying instances of have + PP; however, the question of transitivity can be as difficult to solve as with be (see section 2.2). Denison (1993:341 ff.) recognises four other functions of have + PP, but there is no overlapping between these functions.1
 
The variant form have been+PP is much less common than either of the other two forms. Visser (1973:2431) states that it "occurs with moderate frequency in Old, Middle and Modern English; nowadays, however, almost exclusively with the past participle gone". Rydén & Brorström (1987:25) make the observation that the form is more resultative than be + PP, and that it probably emerged to fill that function.
 
The 17th century grammarian Samuel Butler mentions the paradigm in his Grammar (1634):
 
The Perfect [...] is formed of the obliqe have [...]
In Verbs of mooving to a place, for have and had, ar used is and was:
but is importeth the action past, without change; was, with chang :
as Hee is gon, hee is fled, hee is run away : i.e. Hee hath gon away,
and remaineth absent : and Hee was gon, hee was fled, hee was run away, is as much as, Hee had gon away, but is now returned. (p. 46)
 
20th century researchers in historical syntax (see section 1.2) recognise another division than that between verbs of motion and non-motion: the aspectual difference between state and action (or state and activity) is regarded as the major factor influencing the be/have paradigm (see Ando 1976:128, Rydén & Brorström 1987:26, Visser 1973:2042). The aspect having to do with state or result of action promotes the use of be + PP, while the aspect having to do with action promotes have. In this study, the aspectual distinction is taken to be a major factor influencing the choice of variant forms.
 
The aspect of action can be realised in several ways. Some verbs, for instance those of motion, are basically "actional". There are also some contexts which emphasise action rather than the result of the action. Such parameters are iterative contexts, expressing repeated action, and durative contexts, expressing prolonged action. At the time with which this study is concerned, be + PP still occurred in these contexts, although less frequently than have + PP.
 
[1] ... her daughter in a languishing condition, worn to nothing almost with a fever, which has hung about her for these last six weeks (Durative context, Russell p. 92-93)
 

[2] Think, sir, that our blood for many generations has run in the purest channel of unsullied honour (Durative context, Farquhar 1699 p. 215)

 

[3] Two or 3 times she hath come to her selfe (Iterative context, Prideaux p.115)

 

[4] Here comes Harris, and first told us how Betterton is come again upon the stage (Iterative context, Pepys p. 255)

 
Compare further section 4.2: The factors examined.
 
Rydén & Brorström (1987:200) have made an estimation of the ascent of have between the years 1500 and 1900, based on their own and other research (see below section 1.2). According to this, the average have ratio until some time between 1600 and 1650 was below 10%, after which it slowly gained ground to reach about 20% in the year 1700. After that, the rise of have and decline of be sped up, the have-percentage in 1800 being approximately 40% and 100 years later circa 90%.
 
It is of some importance to look at other languages which use equivalences of be or have as auxiliaries with past participles of verbs. In present-day German and many Romance languages, the choice of the auxiliary is determined by whether the verb is one of motion, in which case be is used. Historically, however, German had an aspectual difference much like that of EModE.2 A similar development has taken place in Swedish - compare "Dagen är kommen".
 
 
1.2 Background literature
 
The be/have paradigm has been an object of interest for several historical linguists. The most penetrating study made solely of this paradigm is Rydén & Brorström (1987), which deals with the period 1700-1900. Other studies used as reference works for this paper are Ando (1976), Fridén (1948), Kytö (1994), Nakamura (1986), Söderlind (1951) and Visser (1973), all of which treat the be/have paradigm during different stages of its development.
 
To avoid going over the same ground already covered by other studies, some of the statements proven in more than one of the listed papers have not been re-examined. The influence on the be/have paradigm of the aspectual difference between state and action mentioned in section 1.1 is one such statement. The other fact taken as proven is the have-promoting effects of iterative and durative contexts, related to the state/action difference (Rydén & Brorström 1987:22, 184 f; Fridén 1948:44 f; Ando 1976:128). The possible or probable influence of certain other factors (see section 2.1) was considered shown as well. Thus, the investigation was conducted with the parameters rather than the examples as a starting point (see section 2.1).
 
To section 2
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