The Positional Variation of Always in Middle and Early Modern English: A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the positional variation of always in Middle and Early Modern English. It is particularly concerned with the distributional patterns of always in clause structure with the aid of the Helsinki Corpus. Drawing upon Quirk et al. (1985)s positional description of adverbials, the present study provides a detailed account of the distribution of always in three main positions, i.e., initial, medial, and end position. The results of this study demonstrate the different distributional patterns of always depending on its placement in clause structure. In initial position, provided always that construction was prevalent, but it was exclusively limited to a certain text type. In medial position, six different positional patterns were illustrated with relevant examples. Finally, the study suggests that always in end position bears a semantic resemblance to the Present-Day English equivalent all the time.