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英語には be to do 構文というものがある.be 動詞の後に to 不定詞が続く構文で,予定,運命,義務・命令,可能,意志など様々な意味をもち,英語学習者泣かせの項目である.この文法事項については「#4104. なぜ He is to blame. は He is to be blamed. とならないのですか? --- hellog ラジオ版」 ([2020-07-22-1]) で少し触れた.
では,be to do 構文の歴史はいかに? 実は非常に古くからあり,古英語でもすでに少なくとも「構文の種」として確認される.古英語では高頻度に生起するわけではないが,中英語以降では頻度も増し,現代的な「構文」らしいものへと成長していく.近代英語にかけては,他の構文とタグも組めるほどに安定性を示すようになった.長期にわたる文法化 (grammaticalisation) の1例といってよい.
先行研究は少なくないが,ここでは Denison (317--18) の解説を示そう.長期にわたる発達が手短かにまとめられている.
11.3.9.3 BE of necessity, obligation, or future
This verb too is a marginal modal, patterning with a to-infinitive to express meanings otherwise often expressed by modals. For Old English see Mitchell (1985: §§934--49), and more generally Visser (1963--73: §§1372--83). One complication is that the syntagm BEON + to-infinitive is used both personally [158] and impersonally [159]:
[158] Mt(WSCp) 11.3
. . . & cwað eart þu þe to cumenne eart . . .
. . . and said are(2 SG) you(2 SG) that (REL) to come are(2 SG)
Lat. . . . ait illi tu es qui uenturus es
'. . . and said: "Are you he that is to come?"'
[159] ÆLS I 10.133
us nys to cweðenne þæt ge unclæne syndon
us(DAT) not-is to say that you unclean are
'It is not for us to say that you are unclean.'
In Middle and Modern English this BE had a full paradigm:
[160] 1660 Pepys, Diary I 193.7 (5 Jul)
. . . the King and Parliament being to be intertained by the City today with great pomp.
[161] 1667 Pepys, Diary VIII 452.6 (27 Sep)
Nay, several grandees, having been to marry a daughter, . . . have wrote letters . . .
[162] 1816 Austen, Mansfield Part I.xiv.135.30
You will be to visit me in prison with a basket of provisions;
Visser states that syntagms with infinitive be are 'still current' (1963--73: §2135), but although there are a few relevant examples later than Jane Austen (1963--73: §§1378, 2135, 2142), most are of the fixed idiom BE to come, as in:
[163] But they may yet be to come.
まとめると,be to do 構文は古英語からその萌芽がみられ,中英語から近代英語にかけておおいに発達した.一時は他の構文とも組める統語的柔軟性を獲得したが,現代にかけてはむしろ柔軟性を失い,統語的には単体で用いられるようになり,現代に至る.
・ Denison, David. English Historical Syntax. Longman: Harlow, 1993.
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