Psych-passives with or in Late Modern English andits historical shift from Early Modern to Present-day English
TAKETAZU, Susumu

1. Introduction
A language is abundant in emotional expressions and they are
expressed in a variety of grammatical devices. In English, the passives of, for instance, are used, along withsuch intransitive verbs as, for expressing simi-

lar emotional conditions, respectively. Psychological verbs in thepassive form (psych-passives), however, seem to be much more utilized in English than other constructions and what we are concernedwith in this paper is psych-passives and the agentive prepositions
they occur with. Psych-passives have been observed to occur with apreposition other thanas an agentive preposition, as in (1).

(1)
a. I saw the company was pleased with my behaviour, (Swift,, 1726); Sophia was much pleased with the beauty of thegirl, (Fielding,, 1749)b. I was indeed terribly surprised at the sight, and stopped shortwithin my grove, (Defoe,, 1719); I was not a little sur-prised at his intimacy with people of the best fashion, (Goldsmith,, 1830)長崎県立大学経済学部論集

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This is the normal usage of the day and the(1875­1933)

gives descriptions about the agentive prepositions occurring withthe passives ofand, as in (2).

(2)
Please 4.a. Passive. To be pleased. Const.
Surprise 5. Often., const.

(.

) or inf.

The standard usages of the late 19th century dictate that when theverb

occurs in the passive, it takes

sition and the passive ofas an agentive prepo-

accompaniesor.

For a couple of centuries, however, psych-passives have been
observed to be occurring with, as in (3).

(3)
a. Emma was particularly pleased by Harrietʼs begging to be allowed
to decline it. (Austen,, 1815); Myrtle Cass, as the office-boy, wasso much pleased by the applause of her relatives, (Lewis,,

1920); Was it folly in Tom to be so pleased by their remembrance ofhim, at such a time? (Dickens,, 1843­44)

b. Thorne was surprised by a visit from a demure Barchester hardware dealer, (Trollope,, 1858); Rosamond was surprisedby the appearance of the maid-servant. (Collins,
Heyst was surprised by the disclosure. (Conrad,, 1856);, 1915)

Not only such great writers as Austen and Dickens but Trollope or Conrad are also found to have used the psych-passives withthe agentive, as early as in the 19th century, contrary to our con-

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

ventional notions.
I have examined the developmental history of the passives ofoccurring withor

as an agentive preposition from theperiod of Late Modern English to that of Present-day English. It has
been shown thatwas so predominant that it occurred about threetimes more frequently thanPresent-day English,
rate is such thatin Late Modern English, whereas inhas been on the increase and the occurrence

has been catching up or even surpassing.1）

In this article I will show how the passives of psych-verbs synonymous tooccur withor

, during the Late Modern

English period, specifically during the 18th and 19th centuries. In
analyzing data, I will show some characteristics of the verbs as wellas those of the writers. I will also examine the psych-passives during
the periods of Early Modern English and Present-day English andcompare the results with that of Late Modern English. The comparison will reveal the developmental history of the agentive prepositions with psych-passives, that is, the dominance of

over

or

, which were prevalent in earlier times. Finally, I will argue that
this prepositional shift of psych-passives may have been the same
shift that happened to the passives of English in general, where an
agentive-phrase replaced such other prepositions as, etc.

1）Refer to Taketazu (1999: 199, 207­208). The reason that I focused on the verbon this particular study is because
seems to be one of the most typicalpsych-verbs. In fact, it is the most frequently used psych-verb among other synonymous verbs. It was my assumption that to examine the behaviors of a typical psychverb will help reveal the behaviors of psych-verbs in general.

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2. Synonymous psych-verbs
The verbs synonymous towhich are to be treated inthis article are:and

. The fact that theseverbs are synonymous can be shown by the circular or roundabout
definitions of these verbs:

for instance, is described as “sur-prise (someone) greatly; fill with astonishment,
or greatly surprise”, oras “surpriseas “cause (someone) to feel mild as-

tonishment or shock” and so on.
Their synonymity can also be illustrated by the parallel use of
two synonymous verbs in a sentence, shown in (4).
(4)
Then turned bewildered and amazed, (Scott,);

Astonished and shocked at so unlover-like a speech, (Austen,); Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; (Ch. Brontë,ished and dismayed); They were not however the less aston(Shelley,); Poor Mrs. Edmonstone

was alarmed and perplexed beyond measure; (Yonge,); he was startled and bewildered. (Kipling,);“Thy acts are like mercy,” said Hester, bewildered and appalled.
(Hawthorne,); I could not but feel amazed andshocked at his indifference; (Melville,); if I were not stunned

and alarmed by what I hear of her wildness, (Simms,); etc.

Synonymous as they may be, these verbs may have some slightly

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

different shades of meaning from each other as in (5).
(5)
The fat butler seemed astonished, not to say shocked, at this violationof etiquette; (Disraeli,); Malmayns, who appearedmuch surprised, and not a little alarmed, at the sight of so many persons. (Ainsworth,); Those who were astonished, andeven startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, (Hawthorne,); He was amazed, and a little startled, (Collins,); He was perplexed and somewhat astonished by thisunexpected proposition(Dreiser,); etc.

The writers, with these differences in mind, may have usedthem in an appropriate way in a suitable context. Basically, however,they seem to have such identical or similar meanings as to be included as a group of synonyms.

3. Corpus and the writers
3.1 Four Corpora
Four computer corpora were mainly used to collect data: The
Victorian Literary Studies Archives (VLSA) and the Modern English Collection (MEC) for late Modern English. For Present-day English, the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) are utilized. We also made use ofconcordances for the collection and confirmation of the data for
Early Modern English.
The VLSA is a corpus created at Nagoya University, which長崎県立大学経済学部論集

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contains more than a hundred British writers of the Victorian period as well as American writers of the same period. It also contains
writers of the Early Modern English period such as Spenser, Shakespeare, Defoe, Swift and so forth.
The MEC is a corpus created at the University of Virginia andit is assumed to contain 50 million words of British and American
English from the 16th to the early 20th century. Unfortunately, this
corpus, which was used in my previous research (Taketazu, 2015) is
no longer available, so the VLSA was used as the main corpus, with
the MEC used to supplement any data that was unavailable fromthe VLSA.
Compared to the MEC, the VLSA has a larger number of British writers, generally with more works of each writer,2） which are
not in the MEC. On the other hand, the MEC has more American
writers and works, some of which are not contained in the VLSA.3）
The data from these corpora is, so to speak, a hybrid data but thiswould not be a detriment to our purpose of obtaining the overall ratio of

andoccurring with psych-passives during the periods weare concerned with.
The BNC is a corpus of Present-day British English. It contains
100 million words of spoken and written English: 90% percent are
written texts and 10 % are spoken texts.4）2）The only exception is Samuel Johnson and his data here was obtained from the

MEC, which contains
3）Sedgwick, Child, Bird, Willis, Simms, Curtis, Taylor and Cummins are such writers.

So their data in this paper are those obtained from the MEC when I was writing myprevious paper (Taketazu, 2015)
4）The corpus I used is Shogakkansʼ BNC, which is practically the same corpus as theoriginal BNC except for a very small number of citations which are excluded because of copyright.

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

The COCA is a corpus created at Brigham Young University
and contains approximately 450 million words of Present-day
American English from 1990 to 2012. The texts include fictions,magazines, newspapers, academic journals and spoken texts.
First, the data was collected from the VLSA and, with the data
already obtained from the MEC, the usages of the famous authors
and popular writers of the 18th and 19th centuries were examined.
The obtained results were compared with the outcome of Early
Modern and Present-day English.
3.2 British and American writers
I have selected some thirty-plus writers each from Britain andAmerica (thirty-four from Britain, thirty-two from America). Writers of Britain are5）: Henry Fielding (1707­54), Samuel Johnson (1709­84), Oliver Goldsmith (1728­74), Walter Scott (1771­1832), Jane
Austen (1775­1817), Charles Lamb (1775­1834), Thomas Carlyle(1795­1881), Mary Shelly (1797­1851), Benjamin Disraeli (1804­81),
W. H. Ainsworth (1805­82), Charles Darwin (1809­82), Thomas
Peckett Prest (1810­59), Elizabeth Gaskell (1810­65), W. M. Thackeray (1811­63), Anthony Trollope (1815­82), Charlotte Brontë (1816­55), Emily Brontë (1818­48), George Eliot (1819­80), C. M. Yonge(1823­1901), Wilkie Collins (1824­89),6） Lewis Carroll (1832­98),5）Dickensis not included here because he was treated in my previous article(Taketazu, 2015). In the article, his data was compared with those of his contemporaries such as are treated in this article.
6）The number of Collinsʼ works contained in the VLSA is so large that the yielded
data could disrupt the whole statistics. In fact, the total number of instances is 278,
compared to the second largest Gaskellʼs data is 151, so I have decided to use twentyof his works fromto
. The size of the data (the total number)thus obtained is 175 instances, close to Gaskellʼs data. This reducing of the data
hardly seems to change the rate of and .

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Samuel Butler (1835­1902), Thomas Hardy (1840­1928), Andrew
Lang (1844­1912), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850­94), Oscar Wilde(1854­1900), George Bernard Shaw (1856­1950), George Gissing(1857­1903), Joseph Conrad (1857­1924), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859­1930), Rudyard Kipling (1865­1936), H. G. Wells (1866­1946), G. K.
Chesterton (1874­1936) and W. S. Maughm (1874­1965).
American writers are George Washington (1732­99), Washington Irving (1783­1859), James Fenimore Cooper (1789­1851), Catharine Sedgwick (1789­1867), William H. Prescott (1796­1859), Maria Lydia Child (1802­80), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803­82),
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804­64), Robert Montgomery Bird (1806­54), Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806­67), William Gilmore Simms (1806­70), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807­82), Edgar Allan Poe(1809­49), Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811­96), Henry David Thoreau(1817­62), Herman Melville (1819­91), George William Curtis (1824­92), Bayard Taylor (1825­78), Maria S. Cummins (1827­66), Luisa
May Alcott (1832­88), Alger Horatio (1832­99), Mark Twain (1835­
1910), W. D. Howells (1837­1920), Henry James (1843­1916), Edith
Wharton (1862­1937), Frank Norris (1870­1902), Willa Cather (1873­1947), Jack London (1876­1916), Sherwood Anderson (1876­1941)
and Scott Fitzgerald (1896­1940).
These writers were selected because they are famous andpopular writers in the literary history of the 18th and 19th centuries
and many of them are prolific enough to provide sufficient data andmeaningful results. Some of the writers produced their works in theearly 20th century, but their acquisitions of the English language arethought to have taken place in the late 19th century and therefore
they are assumed to have been using 19th century English, so they

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

are also included.
The data of just over thirty writers from each country may not
be representative of the linguistic situations of the period but they
are assumed to be a close representation of them since the results(that is, the ratio of

and) of Britain and America have proved tobe quite similar to each other.
A separate consideration is given to British writers and their
American counterparts because it may be possible that the twocountries have different linguistic tendencies with their own characteristics. It has been claimed that America has preserved older features of English that Britain has lost. Markwardt (1958: 59­80) describes it as the “colonial lag”. Nevalainen (2006: 146) seems to be inagreement to this idea and says that “this conservatism is called colonial lag”. So it may be expected that American writers show older
tendency in their choice of preposition, but it has proved that the results from the two countries show quite a similarity in the ratio of
and.

4. Late Modern English
4.1 Some collected examples
Let us now provide some examples of psych-passives withorthat we have gathered from the VLSA and the MEC. This is alist of samples and they are meant to be presented in such a way as
to represent a general tendency of each verb. ʻBrʼ at the head of theexamples stands for Britain, ʻAmʼ for America.
There are some examples where other prepositions such asor

are used with the passives of these verbs, but only

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are taken into consideration. That is because

the most predominant prepositions and

or

and

are

seem to beolder prepositions to show agency and in Present-day English, they
are scarcely used with these psych-passives. The occurrences ofor

may affect the occurrences oforto some extent,

Br: Somewhat alarmed at this account, (Scott,-but it only seems to be a negligible degree.
(6)(a) alarm); Dobbin said, rather alarmed at the fury of the old man,(Thackeray,); She was so alarmed at having said this,(Yonge,); Rowena, somewhat alarmed by themention of outlaws in force, (Scott,); when they were alarmed

by the sudden and furious ringing of a bell overhead. (Ainsworth,); Mr. Donne was too much alarmed by what he heard of the fever(Gaskell,); Madame will be alarmed by your absence. (Col-lins,); etc.

Am: I am alarmed at dangerous spirit which has appeared in thetroops(Washington,, vol.15);

said I, more and morealarmed at his wildness, (Melville,); Alarmed by the rapid ap-

proach of the storm, (Sedgwick,); I was a little alarmed byhis energy. (Melville,); etc.

(b) amaze
Br: She was quite amazed at her own discomposure; (Austen,); “Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing
the French language. (Charlotte Brontë,); Grace was amazedPsych-passives withat the mildness of the passionorin Late Modern English(Hardy,amazed at the outburst of wrath); Jack was(Gissing,); I am amazed, sir,by your range of information, (Collins,); They listened and as-

sented, amazed by the wonderful simplicity(Conrad,); etc.
Am: you are not amazed at your calamity; (Sedgwick,); He

was amazed also at her vehemence of emotion. (Sinclair,);leaving the whole party of Christian spectators amazed and rebukedby this lesson(Irving,); he was much amazedby the contradictions of voice, face, manner, (Alcott,); etc.

(c) appall
Br: Lord Kirkaldy was appalled at my blunders. (Yonge,); he was appalled at the thought of bidding her(Gissing,); Mr. Thumble started back, appalled by the energy of thewords used to him. (Trollope,); etc.

Am: Appalled at the dreadful fate that menaced me, I clutched frantically at the only large root

(Melville,

vast edifice of etiquette, (London,); He was appalled at the); How often was he ap-

palled by some shrub covered with snow, (Irving,);He was appalled by the selfishness he encountered, (London,); etc.

(d) astonish
Br: “I am equally astonished at the goodness of your heart, and thequickness of your understanding.” (Fielding,ished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley!” (Austen,); “I am aston);

I am so astonished at what you tell me that I forget myself. (Gissing,長崎県立大学経済学部論集

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); I am more often astonished by the prudence ofgirls than by their recklessness. (Trollope,); etc.

Am: The rest of the savages seemed grieved and astonished at theearnestness of my solicitations. (Melville,); Mabel was aston-ished at his indifference to many of her favorites, (Cummins,); Full-grown people were often astonished at the wit andwisdom of his decisions. (Twain,) ; etc.

(e) astound
Br: he was astounded...at such an indignity. (Thackeray,); the other servants perfectly astounded at his coolness.
(Ainsworth,); they were all astounded by the news that...

(Trollope,); The butler was astounded by

the manner of this advice, (Conrad,); etc.

Am: Even Ernest was astounded at the quickness... (London,); Though astounded...by the uproar, (Cooper,); etc.
(f) baffle
Br: I donʼt mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; (Brontë,); she was baffled by the same hopeless confusion ofideas. (Collins,); having been somehow baffledby this womanʼs disparagement of this reputation he had obtained(Conrad,); etc.

Am: Then he checked himself, baffled by the massive ignorance...

(Glasgow,); He was like and yet unlike herfather. She was baffled by him. (Anderson,); etc.

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English(g) bewilder
Br: There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired. (Ch. Brontë,); Silas, bewildered by the changes thirty

years had brought over his native place had stopped several persons(Eliot,); He was bewildered by the height of his wifeʼsambition. (Trollope,); poor Ethel was bewildered

by a multiplicity of teachers, (Thackeray,); etc.

Am: Cora and Alice had stood trembling and bewildered by this unexpected desertion; (Cooper,); The young man

was bewildered by his rage and disappointment. (Simms,);

She clung to her friend as if she was a little bewildered by the sudden
news. (Alcott,); etc.

(h) dismay
Br: I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, (Ch. Brontë,);We are rather dismayed at their bringing two servants withthem. (Gaskell,); Molly was rather dismayed by the of-fers of the maid... (Gaskell,); I was so dis-mayed by the first waking impressions of my dream, (Collins,); etc.
Am: and no way dismayed at the character of the enemy (Irving,); He was astonished and dismayed at his own emotion. (Stowe,menaces. (Irving,); I had been much dismayed by their); etc.

(i) perplex
Br: “I must say I am often perplexed at the differences ” (Disraeli,); He was often perplexed by the problems of life

(Gaskell,);

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She was the only child of old Admiral Greystock, who was much perplexed by the possession of a daughter. (Trollope,); etc.
Am: I am extremely perplexed at the uneasiness(Washington,

Vol. 9); he was perplexed by its prolonged secrecy, (Sedgwick,); the young Dinks was perplexed by a singu-

lar feeling of happiness. (Curtis,); etc.

(j) shock
Br: I was greatly shocked at the barbarity of the letter(Fielding,); I suppose you are shocked at my character. (Scott,); the Countess was shocked at the familiarity of (Thackeray,); A stranger is shocked by a tone of defiance in every

voice, (Gaskell,); He was a little shocked

by the language he had heard(Trollope,); etc.

Am: one of her aunts, shocked at the omission of decorum
wick,(Sedg-); She looked shocked at such unchristian ig-

norance. (Wharton,); Fresh from his revolution-ists, he was shocked by the intellectual stupidity of the master class.
(London,);(k) startle
Br: He was startled at his own audacity, (Gissing,);

Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted into her
mind. (Eliot,); Doubtless you are startled by the sudden-

ness of this discovery. (Eliot,); The major was startled byhis eloquence, (Trollope,); She was horri-

bly startled by the darkness. (Conrad,); etc.

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

Am: But Pearl, not a whit startled at her motherʼs threats
thorne,(Haw-); Robinson Crusoe could not have been more

startled at the footprint in the sand than we were at this unwelcome
discovery. (Melville,); Isabella was startled by a corresponding

mental resemblance, (Sedgwick,tled by a scream, (Melville,); I was suddenly star); she was startled by a sharp and an-

gry exclamation from Nan, (Cummins,); etc.

(l) stun
Br: She were just stunned by finding her mother was dying(Gaskell,); he was partly stunned by the discovery he had made(Conrad,); I was so stunned by this sudden shock that for atime I must have nearly lost my reason. (Doyle,); etc.

Am: The poor youth was actually stunned, not by what was said tohim, but by the sudden consciousness of his own vehemence. (Simms,); But she was stunned by her own grief, (Curtis,);

I was for the moment stunned by what they disclosed to me. (London,); etc.

4.2 Statistics
The collected data on each verb and each writer can be arranged as in the following tables. The tables show the occurrencesof each authorʼs use of psych-passive with

or

.7）

7）Although sufficient attention was paid in collecting data, some of the figures may

show minor variation because there are examples with ambiguous meanings
whether they are psychological or pseudo-psychological. There may also be somehuman oversights in dealing with a large amount of data. This will be the case withthe figures on Table 6 in 7.1, where the division (by 4.5) may naturally lead to approximate numbers. Nevertheless, it does not seem to affect the general ratio between and .

−17
−17
−17
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−18
−18
−18
−
−
−18
−18
−18
−
−18
−18
−
−
−
−18
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−

Year of Birth & Death

Fielding
JohnsonGoldsmth
Scott
AustenLambCarlyleShelley
DisraeliAinsworthDarwinPrest
GaskellThackerray
Trollope
Ch. Brontë
E. Brontë
Eliot
Yonge
Collins
Carroll
ButlerHardy
Lang
Stevenson
Wilde
Shaw
Gissing
ConradDoyle
Kipling
H.G.Wells
Chesterton
MaughmTotal

Author
by

amaze

at

by

alarm

at

at

by

appallatbyastonishatbyastoundatbybaffleatbybewilderatbydismayatbyperplex

Table 1 British writersʼ psych-passives and at or by

by

shock
at

2

0

by

startle
at

by

stun
at

by

Total
at

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−
−
−
−
−
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−18
−
−18
−18
−18
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−

Washington
IrvingCooper
Sedgwick
PrescottChild
EmersonHawthorne
Bird
Willis
Simms
Longfellow
Poe
Stowe
ThoreauMelville
CurtisTaylorCummins
AlcottHoratio
Twain
Howells
H. James
WhartonNorrisDreiser
CatherGlasgow
LondonAndersonFitzgerald

by

amaze

at

by

alarm

at

by

appallat

at

byastonishbyastoundatbybaffleat

at

bybewilderbydismayatbyperplex
at

by

shock
at

by

startle
at

by

stun
at

by

Total
at

or

Total

Year of Birth & Death

AuthorTable 2 American writersʼ psych-passives and at or by

Psych-passives within Late Modern English

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4.3 Some thoughts on the statistics
Before getting into the analysis of the data, some comments
must be made on the role that statistics play in a philological study.
The ideal way to collect data for any philological analysis would be
to collect the totality of sentences or utterances, written or spoken,
in the whole society. But it would be impossible to do so. The next
best thing we can do is to collect a certain kind of and certain
amount of data within a certain microcosmic world, within a certain
space of time. In this study, the microcosm would be literary circles,
Britain and America, during the 18th and 19th centuries. The datacollected in this way would be an approximate representation of thewhole linguistic picture of that society within that period of time.
Statistics thus obtained may not be an exact representation of alinguistic phenomenon in question, but can be used to show a general tendency of that particular linguistic phenomenon. The figuresfrom each verb or each author on the tables above show a great
deal of variation in the occurrence ofand. It is difficult to cap-

ture the characteristics of the occurrence behaviors of prepositions
from these figures.
To solve this shortcoming would be to add up the figures fromeach verb or each author, so that some bigger picture could be seen.
Simple adding of the figures, however, may not represent a real linguistic situation. Nevertheless, it can be expected that some tendencies can be clearly seen. Therefore, the final total may be considered
to be a condensed picture in a sort of a microcosmic society, inwhich this particular linguistic phenomenon has occurred.

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

5. Analysis of the Data
5.1 Some characteristics of the verbs
Some characteristics of the verbs can be observed from the tables. The most frequently used verb islowed by(aside), fol-and so on in the order of fre-quency of occurrence. The verbs may be classified into three groups
depending on which preposition they tend to occur with. The threegroups are: (i) verbs which prefer to occur with, (ii) verbs which

tend to takeandand (iii) verbs which accompany

more orless in similar numbers.
andhave a very strong tendency to occur with, with a small number of occurrences withmore than, but not to the extent ofand.

occurs withand.

on the other hand, show the opposite tendency,

accompanying mainly.

andvirtually occur only with.
The verbs of the third group

andshow more or less similar numbers of the occurrences ofand.

There is a fluctuation of occurrence, however, between the twocountries.

, for instance, tends to occur within America, while

is more prevalent thanmore thanin Britain. This kindof discrepancy is also true of other verbs as well.
5.2 Some characteristics about the writers
The writers also seem to show unique characteristics. It may
be possible to make the following observations about the writers depending on their preference for the preposition, whetheror.

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Some writers seem to prefer to use
and some others use bothand, while others tend to use

more or less similarly.

In Britain, the writers who seem to prefer to use

are Fielding,Goldsmith, Scot, Austen, Thackeray, Yonge, Lang, Gissing andKipling. The writers who use

more thanare Johnson, Gaskell,

Trollope, Collins and Conrad. In America the writers who like to use
more thanare Washington, Poe, Stowe, Melville, Cummins,

Horatio and Twain. Those who like to use

are Prescott, Irving,

Cooper, Hawthorne, Simms, Sedgwick, Curtis and London.
It may be said that the writers of the first group are more orless conservative writers, preferring to use the ʻolderʼ preposition,

whereas the writers of the latter group are rather progressive andfree from traditional norm by adopting a ʻnewerʼ preposition.

There seems to be another tendency: an individual writerseems to prefer a certain verb (aside from, the most widely-used psych-verb). In Britain, Gaskell, for instance, makes great use
of
and
of

and

, Ainsworth, Eliot, Conrad, Thackeray
and, Trollope

and Gissing, while in America, Sedgwick and Irving make a good use, Cummins and Twain, London

The writers who prefer to use, the verb mainly occurring withand so on.

tend to make much use of. Gaskell, Eliot, Trollope,

Yonge, Conrad, Sedgwick are such writers. Furthermore, Trollope
uses

many times withand Conrad with, seem-ingly challenging the norm of the day. Ainsworth and Sedgwick use
with
both

and

much more frequently than

, which occurs with

. Gissing and Yonge are the writers who prefer to use

and they use

with, much more frequently than the aver-Psych-passives withage. Thackeray is also an
andbut usesorin Late Modern English

and he makes much use ofvery infrequently.

Each writer may have had their own favorite verb and they
may have decided that it would be the better word for expressing
ʻamazementʼ or ʻsurpriseʼ in a particular context and may have usedthem with some significant meanings intended.
Furthermore, a conscious distinction between

and

seems

to be made on a writerʼs part, as in (7), where three psych-passives
are used in proximity and the choice of preposition seems to be dependent on a writerʼs preference.
(7)
He was surprised at the commonness of the clay. Life proved not to befine and gracious. He was appalled by the selfishness he encountered,and what had surprised him even more than that was the absence ofintellectual life. Fresh from revolutionists he was shocked by intellectual stupidity of the master class. (London,)

In (7), London uses the passives of

and

in a

four-line space and seems to make an intentional distinction between the prepositions depending on the verb. The passive ofusually comes withthe passives ofand, so Londonʼs use is a normal usage, but
generally comes with

, not

in

America English. This use of Londonʼs seems to reflect his overall
preference forwith psych-passives.

5.3 The ratio ofand

Let us now present the frequencies of occurrence ofand長崎県立大学経済学部論集

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with psych-passives in Britain and America, with the total numberson Table 3.
Table 3 Frequency of occurrence of psych-passive + at or by in LModE
Britain
Verb

Prep

at

America
by

at

Total
by

at

by

alarm
amaze
appallastonishastoundbafflebewilderdismayperplexshock
startlestun
Total

From the table it is clear that the general tendencies of occurrenceofandseem to be quite similar between Britain and America.

The ratios of occurrence ofandfor each verb seem to show

similarities as well.
The total numbers of occurrence ofandand the ratio ofthem are shown on the following table. The overall ratio ofin Late Modern English is approximately 1 : 0.94.

andPsych-passives withorin Late Modern English

Table 4 The ratio of at and by in LModE
Britain
Prep

at

AmericabyFrequency

by

Total
at

by

6

Ratio

It shows that

at

．

and

．

．

occur more or less in similar rates be-

tween Britain and America, withslightly more preferred to.

The same research was conducted in my previous paper (Taketazu,2015) and the ratio we obtained (1 : 0.94) has turned out to be thesame as the rate here after twice as much data have been added.

6. Early Modern English
We have seen the behaviors of psych-passives occurring withorin Late Modern English (1700­1900). Now let us go back to theperiod of Early Modern English (1500­1700) and see how these
psych-passives were behaving a few centuries earlier. The comparison of the usages of the two periods will reveal how certain linguistic behaviors in later times are derived from those of the previous
period.
The writers and works we examined for Early Modern English
are Edmund Spenser (1552?­99), William Shakespeare (1564­1616),(1611), Daniel Defoe (1660?­1731) and
Jonathan Swift (1667­1745). They are the major writers representing the period and their English may be considered to be typical of
the literal English of the day.
I have also examined other writers such as Sidney Philip (1554­長崎県立大学経済学部論集86),Francis

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(1561­1626),

Ben

Jonson(1572­1637),

Christopher Marlowe (1564­93), Thomas Nashe (1567­1601), John
Milton (1608­74), John Bunyan (1628­88) and John Dryden (1631­
1700). Their works, however, yield very few examples of these
psych-passives in question. The writers who yield results are only
Marlowe, Milton and Bunyan, and the results are so meager thatthey have been grouped together and are treated in 6.6.
6.1 Spenser
The psych-verbs that Spenser mainly used in his
are

and

and

used but not in the passive.

and

are
does notseem to be in Spenserʼs vocabulary (Osgood, 1963). Let us show
some examples of psych-passives with an agentive preposition in (8).
(8)
She greatly grew amazed at the sight, (wondrous sighthew, ((, I.v.21); I stand amazed At, ⅲ,7); She was astonisht at her heavenly, II.vii); And stood awhile astonisht at his words, (And though himselfe were at the sight dismayd, (thereat was Britomart dismayd, (dismayed was; (. 650);, II.vii.6); Greatly, III.xi.22); By her I entering half

, IV.x.36); etc.

The frequencies of occurrence of prepositions are as follows:
(

6,

1);

(

4,

3);

(

4,

The agentive prepositions that Spenser mainly used are
has remained in use till Present-day English, while
gradually declined and fallen into near disuse.

8）

19,

1).

and

.
has

appears only oncePsych-passives withorin Late Modern English

in Spencer, but this is a very significant instance because it seems to
be one of the earliest examples in which

is used with a psych-

9）passive. Spenserʼs usage may be said to show a presage of the predominant occurrence ofand a forerunner ofto be used in Late

Modern English.
6.2 Shakespeare
The psych-verbs that Shakespeare used with an agentive
preposition are

and

and

once, as in (9).

takes

.

occurs withfive times(9)
I am more amazed at his dishonour Than at the strangeness of it.
(, III.ii.149); I am amazed at your passionate words.

(, III, ii, 220); What, amazed At my misfortunes? (, III, ii, 374­5); till you do return, I rest perplexed with thousand

cares. (V, v, 95); etc.

8）This reminds us of the history of the passives of(Taketazu, 2014: 27­29). It
first started with the occurrence of, then followed by , and the final entranceof . Psych-passives meaning ʻsurpriseʼ or ʻamazementʼ occurring with may havealready started before Spenserʼs time. Interestingly enough,had yet to be
used in a psychological sense in Spenser, but it was used in a physical sense (,, III. iii. 11.2). The psychological use was a later
development (the first citation is 1692) and this is also true of Shakespeare.
9）in the passive is used with three times: two of them are used in a physicalsense and one is psychological. This is the only instance of the psych-passive usedwithin Spenser. This sort of overlapping use of
to cover physical and psychological senses may have triggered the extended use of
to other psych-verbs ingeneral.

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are used in the passive but with no preposition.

andonly occur in the active voice and no pas-

sives are observed.

and

do not seemto be in Shakespeareʼs dictionary (Onions, 1911).
It may be Shakespeareʼs rhetoric but not showing agency in his
many uses of psych-passives seems to be a little enigmatic, compared to Spenserʼs usages, in which agentive noun phrases are expressed 38 times altogether. It may be that Shakespeareʼs use ofpsych-passives is a reflection of the playwrightʼs being consciousthat these predicates are felt to be adjectival.
6.3 The King James Bible
The verbs used in the passive with a preposition in
are

and

. Let us show some exam-

ples in (10).
(10)
And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God. (people were astonished at his doctrine: (ples were astonished at his words. (the seeing of it. (, 7:28); And the disci, 10: 24); I was dismayed at, 21:3); Learn not the way of the heathen, and be

not dismayed at the signs of heaven. (, 10:2); ʻBe not afraid nor

dismayed by reason of this great multitude; (were much perplexed thereabout, (20:2); as they

, 24:4); etc.

The numbers of occurrences are as follows:(14),, 9:43);the

(

5),

(

1).

(

2),

is virtually the only

preposition occurring with all the psych-passives in theinPsych-passives withorin Late Modern English“dismayed by reason of this great multitude” is a marginal and ambiguous example whether this is an agentive preposition or a part ofan idiomatic expression of “by reason of” since in other versions thesame line is translated as “dismayed at this multitude”. The absenceofwith psych-passives except this example suggests that thismay not be likely to be an agentive preposition, although it could
have been extended to the use of the agentive preposition in later
usages.
The dominant occurrences ofin Spencer, Shakespeare andsuggest that it was widely used during the earlier part of the Early Modern English period. Considering the continuous use ofuntil Present-day English, it is natural to think that

kept being used prevalently throughout the Late Modern English
period as well.
6.4 Defoe
The psych-verbs occur quite frequently in Defoeʼs works. They
may be more likely to be used in adventurous novels like, compared to the religious works of Milton or Bunyan. The
verbs used in the passive areand. Let us show some examples.

(11)
I was so alarmed at the just reason
alarmed at the news, (the appearance of the ships
about them. (sight of our bark, ((); I was not); the country being alarmed with(); and all the country alarmed); he seemed amazed at the); I was indeed astonished at the impu-

長崎県立大学経済学部論集

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dence of the men, ((年）); He was astonished at her discourse,); I was so astonished with the sight (were perplexed at this, (little boy. (); Our men); I was greatly perplexed about my); I was indeed shocked with this sight, (was a little startled at that, (course, (); William was stunned at my dis-); etc.

The numbers of occurrences are as follows;
1),
1),

(
(

2,

1),

1),
(

(

1),

(

used preposition (12 times) andlowed by); I

(twice) and

4,
1).

(

1),

10）

3,
(

2,

1,

is the most frequently

comes second (5 times), fol-has not appeared yet in Defoe.

6.5 Swift
The verbs that Swift used in the passive areand. Some of the examples, all from, are given below.
(12)
I was

alarmed with the cries; He was amazed at the continual noise

it made; they were really amazed at the sight of a man ; he was moreastonished at my capacity for speech and reason; He was perfectly astonished with the historical account ; I was quite stunned with thenoise; etc.

The number of occurrences are:
10）

(

3),

(

4),

is very frequently used in a psychological sense and it is used withtimes), with(17 times) and with (once).

(18

Psych-passives with

(

1,

1),

(

1),

(

or

in Late Modern English

1). Compared to De-

foe, Swift makes less use of these verbs and older prepositions likeorseem to be preferred.

The usage of Defoe and Swift does not seem to be too different
from those of their predecessors. The main verbs used areandand their passives occur mainly withor.

6.5 Other writers
Three writers are treated in this section: Marlowe, Milton andBunyan. The verbs that Marlowe used in the passive with a preposition are

and
with

in the passive occurs with. Milton used

andare only once for each verb. Bunyan usedand

. The occurrencesand.

The examples in (13) are the ones of Marlowe, Milton, and Bunyan.
(13)
Marlowe: And hosts of soldiers stand amazed at us; (, I. ii. 220); the Soldan is No more dismayed with tidings of his fallThan in the haven(sudden alteration, (, IV.iii.30); Midas, dismayed at the, 334)

Milton: and flocking birds, with those also that love twilight amazedat what she means, ((); be not dismayed, Nor troubled at these tidings fromthe earth, ((); All amazed At that so sudden blaze,); Perplexed and troubled at his bad success).

Bunyan: But I say, my Neighbours were amazed at this my great conversion, (); for he, being dismayed with their coming

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upon him, (年）); etc.

The variety of verbs and prepositions used are not much different from the earlier writers, showing the continuation from the earlier period to this late Early Modern.
andare the main verbs and their passives occur withsuch prepositions as,

andhad yet to be used at thisstage.
6.6 Some characteristics of Early Modern English
We have seen the psych-passives used with the prepositions in
Early Modern English. Table 5 on the next page shows how eachverb is used in the passive with a preposition in each writer or work.
Verbs of no occurrence such as

andare omitted

from this table.
It is observed that the verbs chiefly used in the earlier part ofthis period areandmostly withpreposition.

and. Their passives occur
is the most frequently used

has hardly appeared at this stage yet, except for one

example in Spenser.
may have been used to indicate the semantic role of ʻstimulusʼ of the agentive noun phrase, as Leech and Svartvik (2002: 163)
state as follows: “An emotive reaction to something can be expressed by the preposition
stead of” and “In <BrE>,

is often used in-when what causes the reaction is a person or object

rather than an event.” This description in Present-day English
should be applicable to the English of this period as well.

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

Table 5 Psych-passives with agentive prepositions in EModE
alarm amaze astonish dismay perplex shock startle
Spenser

stun

Total

at

−

−

−

14

with

−

−

−

23

by

−

−

−

1

at

−

5

Shakespeare with

−

1

by
at
Bible

−

−

0

−

21

with

−

−

0

about

−

−

1

at
Defoe

Swift

Others

12

with

5

about

2

at

5

with

4

about

2

at

7

with

3

about

0

Total

9

25

28

33

7

1

1

2

106

Note: 0 means that the verb is used but not in the passive if used in the passive, with no preposition;−means that the verb is not used by the author

It can also be interpreted to indicate ʻinstrumentʼ, as Mustanoja(1960: 363­64) says, “Cases of this kind illustrate the development of
the original local use ofverbs such as
and came to take

into an instrumental function.” Other
andmust have followed suit

to show ʻstimulusʼ or ʻinstrumentʼ.

These verbs continued to be used with

until and during theLate Modern English period. This continued use of

may be said tobe due to the ʻfrequencyʼ principle at work (or we may say the ʻoldhabits-die-hardʼ principle), as is suggested by Baughʼs statement

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(1935: 65), which says, “An examination of the words in an Old English dictionary shows that about eighty-five per cent of them are nolonger in use. Those that survive, to be sure, are basic elements ofour vocabulary, and by the frequency with which they recur makeup a large part of any English sentences.”andare each used only once and con-sidering their first citation dates used in psychological senses (
1694,

1686,

1595), it is little wonder that they are

only sporadically used.
Such verbs likeor

hardly occur at all. Theseverbs are latecomers and when they made an entrance, they may
have begun to occur with a newer preposition
yoke of older prepositions such asor, not bound by the. This seems to be thepresage of the usages of the forthcoming period.
Since

is virtually non-existent during this period except one

example of Spenserʼs, the ratio ofandin Early Modern English

period can be roughly calculated to be 1 : 0.02 and for the sake of
convenience, it may be rounded to be 1 : 0.

7. Present-day English
We have shown a history of psych-passives with agentive
prepositions from Early Modern English to Late Modern English.
Now let us examine the behaviors of the psych-passives with agentive prepositions in Present-day English.
7.1 Results from the BNC and the COCA
The BNC and the COCA were used to collect data from

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

Present-day English. From the BNC we obtained the data of current
British English and from the COCA, the data of contemporary
American English. The BNC11） is a corpus of 100 million words,
whereas the COCA is a corpus of 450 million words. The data fromthe COCA12） is supposedly 4.5 times larger than that of the BNC. In
order to make an easier and clearer comparison and contrast of thedata, adjustments were made by dividing the data from the COCA
by 4.5. Table 6 below shows the results obtained after the adjustments through the division by 4.5 times.
Table 6 Psych-passives with at or by in PE
Britain
Verb

Prep

at

by

America
at

by

Total
at

by

alarm
amaze
appallastonishastoundbafflebewilderdismayperplexshock
startle
stunn
Total

11）The corpus used is Shogakkanʼs BNC, which is practically the same corpus as theoriginal BNC except for a very small number of works which are excluded becauseof a copy right matter.
12）The COCA stands for The Corpus of Contemporary American English created at
Brigham Young University.

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7.2 The comparison of Late Modern and Present-day English
It may be interesting to note that there is a rise and fall of popularity among the verbs. The most frequently used verb islowed by,, fol-and so on, in the order of

frequency. The order has changed from that of Late Modern English: less popular verbs likeorhave gained more popu-

larity and more popular verbs likeandhave lost fa-vor.
In Late Modern English the passives of several verbs occurredwithmore than. Present-day English, however, has seen a to-tally different picture: all the psych-verbs except
more frequently thanThe ratio of

occur with.

andin Late Modern English was approxi-

mately 1 : 0.94, whereas in Present-day English,

has become sodominant for most of the verbs that the ratio ofand

has be-come 1 : 1.8, as is shown on Table 7.
Table 7 The ratio of at and by in PE
Britain
Prep

at

America

by

at

by

Total
at

by

Frequency
Ratio

．

．

．

The comparison of the ratio of Late Modern English in 5.1 andthat Present-day English, together with the result of Early Modern
English will show the shift of the ratios on Table 8.

Psych-passives withorin Late Modern English

Table 8 The shift of the ratios of at and by from EModE to PE
at

by

EModE
LModE

．

PE

．

The general decline ofand the overall increase ofclearly seen from the table and it seems to suggest that
increasing its might and main to be ousting

can behas beenin the history of psych-

passives.
7.3 A developmental history of English passives +Considering the increase ofand the decline ofas an agen-tive preposition, psych-passives seem to have been treading thesame developmental path that the passives in English in general hadtaken. In the history of the English passives,

became so dominant

as to replace other agentive prepositions such as
and so on, which had been used from the Old English
period (Mustanoja 1960: 442; Visser, 1973:
389­90). This shift to1987­2000; Ukaji, 1982:

was assumed to have begun to take place inthe 15 th century (Jespersen, 1927: 317; Mustanoja, 1960: 442) andcompleted whendeclined and finallywent into disuse aroundthe middle of the 18th century after other prepositions had alreadydisappeared in the earlier centuries (Visser, 1973:1987­2000;

Araki·Ukaji, 1984: 254­57; Peitsra, 1993: 228; etc.).
The same kind of shift may have been happening to the pas13）The reasons for the delay is discussed in my previous papers (Taketazu, 2014: 41­42,

2015: 73­74).

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sives of psych-verbs, albeit with a few centuries delay.13） More andmore psych-passives seem to have been forsakingor,which had been used in the Early Modern and Late Modern English
periods, and begun to be adopting more and more of
the dramatically increasing use of, resulting in-phrase with psych-passives in

Present-day English and the possible dominance ofover otherprepositions in the future English.

8. Summary
This article is an attempt to find out the behaviors of psychpassives with the agentive prepositionorin Late Modern Eng-lish, comparing the results with those of Early Modern and Presentday English. By collecting data of some thirty writers of Britain andAmerica from the computer corpora, the frequencies of occurrenceoforwith psych-passives were examined.

It has been found out that in Late Modern English, verbs areclassified into three groups depending on which preposition they occur with.

andoccur predominantly withverbs likeoccurring mostly withandshow opposite tendency,. There is another group of verbs such as
and

and

, whereas

which show an occurrence ofin similar numbers. Interestingly enough, some show a fluc-tuation of occurrence between the two countries.
stance, occurs withmore than, for in-in Britain, while in America it is

the other way around. This is also true of other verbs.
Some observations can also be made about writers: some writers show a preference forand others for, and there are writersPsych-passives with

who use both

and

or

in Late Modern English

in similar numbers. Fielding, Scott, Austen,Thackeray, Yonge, Gissing in Britain are writers who prefer to use, while Ainsworth, Gaskell, Trollope, Collins and Conrad tend touse. In America, Washington, Poe, Thoreau, Twain like to use,

whereas Irving, Cooper, Sedgwick, Hawthorne and Willa prefer touse. Some writers seem to have a favorite verb and they use itmuch more frequently than other verbs.
The data from the Early Modern and the Present-day English
periods were also examined. The examination of the usages of Early
Modern shows that,andare the main verbs

used in the passive and occurred mostly withandhas continued to be used till Present-day, while

has declined tofall into gradual disuse. There is an example in which
the passive ofin Spenserʼsone of the earliest examples ofis used withand this may be
being used with a psych-passive

and may be the forerunner of the later development.
After examining the data of Present-day English, it has beenfound out thatis the only verb which seems to show an obsti-

nate affection for, maybe because of the long history of thefriendly combination of the passive of the verb and. Some otherverbs have changed their behavioral patterns to occur more withand some others have made the bond withstronger. It is obviousthat agentive prepositions with psych-passives have been shifting
from

or

to

. This may be the path that the English passives

in general have trodden a few centuries earlier and the psychpassives seem to be following the same path.

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Acknowledgment
First of all, I have to extend my gratitude to Professor Mitsuharu Matsuoka of Nagoya University, who has created a corpus ofVictorian Literary Studies Archives and allows the corpus researchers to use it freely. Without this corpus, this research would nothave been as complete as it is.
Also I have to thank Mr. Caine, one of my colleagues, whokindly read the manuscript and gave me useful comments about it,so that I could emend any irregularities therein. The responsibility
for any remaining errors is of course mine.