Borrowed PATH verbs in Middle English

Chapter 8 presents the hypotheses about the early use of borrowed path verbs in Middle English which will be investigated in chapter 9: Previous research suggests that these path verbs, which have been shown in chapter 5 not to have any real native forerunners, can be expected to be more frequently used for general literal motion events in translations from French and Latin than in autonomous Middle English texts, while they are expected to be more frequently used for metaphorical and other non-literal motion in autonomous texts. Furthermore, it is likely that they acquire additional manner semantics in Middle English, as speakers interpret them in line with the semantic patterns prevalent in Middle English motion verbs. The chapter also introduces the methodology and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse which serves as the basis for the study.